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THOMAS GRAY. 



Thuhas Grat was born in Cornhill, in the city of 
London, on the 26ih of Deceinher, 1716. His father, 
Philip Gray, was a nioney-scrivcoer, but being of an 
indolent and profuse disposition, he rather diminish- 
ed than improved his paternal fortune. Our author 
received his classical education at Eton school, un> 
der Mr. Antrobus, his mother's brother, a man of 
sound learning and refined taste, who directed hit 
nephew to those pursuits which laid the fuundntioQ 
of his future literary fame. 

During his continuance at Eton, he contracted a 
friendship with Mr. Horace Walpole, well known for 
his knowledge in the fnie arts ; und Mr. Richard 
West, son of the lord chancellor of Ireland, a youth 
of very promising talents. 

When he left Eton school in 1734, he went toCam* 
bridge, and entered a pensioner at Pfterhou<.e, at 
the recommendation of his uncle Antrobus, a ho had 
Iccn a follow of thnt college. It is said that, from 



4 GRAY'S LIFE. 

his cfieminacy and i'air complexion, he acquiredi 
among his fellow stmlents, the appellation of Mi»$ 
Gray, to which the delicacy of liiii manners seems not 
a little to have contributed. Mr. Wulpole was at 
that time a fellow commoner i)f King's College, in the 
tame university ; a fortunate circumstance, which af- 
forded Gray frequent opportunities of intercourse 
with his honourahir friend. 

Mr. West went from Kton to ('hrist Church, Ox- 
ford ; and in this stntc of separation, these two vota- 
ries of the muses, whose dispositions were congeni* 
al, commenced an epiatolury correspondence, part 
of which is published by Mr. Mason, a gentleman 
whose character stands high in the republic of let- 
ters. 

Gray, having imbibed a taste for poetry, did not 
relish those abstruse studieR which generally occupy 
the minds of students at college ; and therefore, as 
he found very little grutification from academical 
pursuits, he left Cambridge in 1738, and returned to 
London, intending to apply himself to the study of 
the law ; but this intention was soon laid aside, upon 
an invitation given him by Mr. Walpolc, to acconi- 
pany him in his travels abroad ; a situation highly 
preferable, in Gray's opinion, to the dry study of 
the law. 

They set out together for France and visited most 
of the places worthy of notice in that country : 
from thence they proceeded to Italy, where an unfor- 
tunate dispute taking place bi>tween them, a separa- 
tion ensued upon their arrival at Florence. Mr. Wal- 
polc, afterwards, with great candour and liberality 



GRAYS LIFE. ^ 

took upon himself the blame of the quarrel ; though 
if we coiuider the matter coolly and impartially, we 
may b« induced to conclude that Gray, from a con> 
tciout superiority of ability, might hare claimed a 
defprence to his opinion and judgment, which his 
honourable friend was not at that time disposed to 
admit : the i upture, however, was very unpleasant to 
both parties. 

Gray piirkuod bis journey to Venice on an econo- 
mic plan, suital>le to ttie circumscribed state of his 
finances, and liavin^ continued there some weeks, 
retarncd to England in September, 1741, He ap- 
pears, from his Ivitcrs, published by Mr. Mason, to 
have paid the luinutest attention to every object, 
worthy of notice, throughout the course of his travels. 
His descriptions are lively and picturesque, and bear 
particular murks of \m genius and diftpo«ition. We 
admire the sublimity of IiIm ideas when he ascends 
the stupendous hci^jrhtsof the .Alps, and are charmed 
vkith his display of nature, decked in all the beauties 
of vegetation, hulta'tl, abutidant^informntion, as well 
as entertainment, may be derived from his casual 
letters. 

Ill about two iuonth.s after his arrival in Eugland, 
he lost his father, who, by an indiscreet profusion, 
had so impainil his fortune, as not to admit of his 
son's prosecuting the study of the law with that de- 
gree of respcctMbility which the nature of the pro- 
fession requires, without beraming bui-den<<ome to 
his mother and aunt« To ol>viutc, therefore, their 
iraportuniiirs on the subject he went to Cambridge, 
and took his bachelor's degree in civil law. 
A '2 



«■ 



6 GRAY S LIFE. 

Biit th« inconvenicnciet and diitreii attached to a 
scanty fortune, were not the only ills our poet had to 
encounter at this time : he had not only lost the friend* 
»hip of Mr. Walpole abroad, but poor West the part* 
ner of his heart, fell a victim to complicated mala> 
dies, brought on by family misfortunes, on the 1st of 
June, 1742, at Popes, a village, in Hertfordshire, 
where he went for the bencAt of the air. 

The excessive degree in which his mind was agitat- 
ed for the loss ot his friend, will best appear from the 
following beautiful little sonnet : 

" In vain 16 me the smiling mornings shine, 

A-d reddeuing Phcnbus liAs his gulden fire : 
The hircls iiivnin tlieir amorous descautjoin, 

Or clieerful fiekis resume their green attire : 
These ears, alas ! (or other notes repine : 

A diflttrent object do the^ eyes require ; 
My loiiely anguisti melts uo heart but mine, 

And in iny breast the imperfect joys expire ; 
Yet raoruing smiles the busy race to cheer, 

And new-born pleasure bring** to happier men ', 
The fields to all their wonted tribute t>ear; 

To warm tlieir little loves the birds complain ; 
I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear ; 

And weep the more, because 1 weep in vain." 

Mr. Gray now seems to have applied his mind ve- 
ry sedulously to poetical composition : his Ode to 
Spring was written early in June, to his friend Mr. 
West, 1>efore he received the melancholy news of his 
death ■ how our poet's snsiceptiblc mind was aflected 
by that melancholy incident; is evidently demoustrat- 



GRAY'S LIFE. ? 

od by the lines quoted above ; the impression, indeed, 
appears to have been too deep to be soon effaced ; and 
the tenor of the subjects which called for the exer- 
tions of bis poetical talents subsequent to the pro- 
ductigp of this Ode, corroborates that observation ; 
these were his Prospect of Eton, and his Ode (o Ad- 
versUy. It is also supposed, and with great proba- 
bility, that he began his Elegy in a Country Church- 
yard about the same time He passed some weeks 
at Stoke, near Windsor, where his mother and aunt 
resided, and in that pleasing retirement flnislied se- 
veral' of his most celebrated poems. 

r»'om thence he returned to Cambridg-e, which, 
from this period, was his chief residence during the 
remainder of his life. The conveniences with which 
a college life was attended, to a person of his narrow 
fortune, and studious turn of riind, were more than 
a compensation for the dislike which, for several rea- 
sons, he bore to the place : but he was perfectly re- 
conciled to his situation, on Mr. Mason's being elect- 
ed a fellow of Pembroke-Hall ; a circumstance 
which brought him a companion, who, during life, re- 
tained for him the highest degree of friendship and 
esteem. 

In 1742 he was admitted to the degree of bnchelor 
in the civil law, as appears from a letter written to 
his particular friend Ur. Wharton, of Old Park, near 
Durham, formerly fellow of Pembroke-Hall, Cam- 
bridge, in which he ridiculfs, with much point and 
humour, the follies and foibles, and the dullness and 
formality, which prevailed in the university. 



S GRAY'S LIFE. 

In order to enrich his mind with the ideas of otherSj 
he devoted a considerable portion of his time to the 
study of the best Greek authors ; so that, in the course 
cf six years, there were hardly any writers of emi- 
nence in that lang^uage wliose works he had not only 
read, but thoroughly digested. 

His attention, however, to the Greek classics, did not 
wholly engross his time ; for he found leisure to ad- 
vert, in a new sarcastical manner, to the ignorance 
and dulness with which he was surrounded, though 
situated in the centre of learning-. 

In 1744 he seems to have given up his attention to 
the Muses. Mr. Walpole, desirous of preserving what 
he had already written, as well as perpptuating the 
<"nerit of their deceased friend, West, endeavoured to 
prevail with Gray, to whom he had previously become 
reconciled, to publish his own poems, together with 
those of West ; but Gray declined it, conceiving their 
productions united would not suffice to fill even a 
small volume. 

In 1747 Gray became acquainted with Mr. Mason, , 
then a scholar of St. John's College, and afterwards 
fellow of Fembroke-Hall. Mr. Mason, who was a 
man of great learning and ingenuity, had written, 
the year before, his " Monody on the Death of Pope," 
and his " II Beiiicoso,"' and " 11 Pacfico ;" and Gray 
revised these pieces at the request of a friend. This 
laid the foundation of a friendship that terminated 
but with life : and Mr. Mason, after the death of 
Gray, testified his I'egard for him, by superintending 
the publication of his works. 



GRAY'S LIFE. 9 

The same year he wrote a little Ode on the Death 
of a favourite Cat of Mr. Walpole's, in which humour 
and instruction are happily blended , but the follow- 
ing year he produced an effort of much more import- 
ance ^the frag-ment of an Essay on the Alliance of 
Education and Government. Its tendency was to 
demonstrate the necessary concurrence of both to 
form great and useful men. 

In 1750 he put the finishing stroke to his Elegy 
written in a Country Church-yard, which was com- 
municated first to his friend Mr. Walpole, and by 
him to many persons of rank and distinction This 
beautiful production introduced the author to the fa- 
vour of lady Cobham, and gave occasion to a singu- 
lar composition, called A Long Story ; in which vari- 
ous effusions of wit and humour are very happily in* 
terspersed. 

The Elegy having' found its way into the " Maga- 
zine of Magazines," the author wrote to Mr, Wal- 
pole, requesting he would put it into the hands of Mr, 
Dodsley, and order him to print it immediately, in 
order to rescue it from the disgrace it might have in- 
curred by its appearance in a magazine. The Elegy 
was the most popular of all our author's productions ; 
it ran through eleven editions, and was translated into 
Latin by Anstey and floberts ; and in the same year 
a version of it was published by Lloyd. Mr. Bently, 
an eminent artist of that time, wishing to decorate 
this elegant composition with every ornament of 
which it is so highly deserving, drew for it a set of de- 
signs, as he also did for the rest of Gray's productions, 
for which the artist was liberally repaid by the au- 



10 GRAY'S LIFE. 

tbor in some beautiful stanzas, but unfortunately n© 
perfect copy of them remains. The following, how- 
ever, are given as a specimen. 

'^ In silent gaze the tuneful choir among, 

Half pleased, half blushing, let the muse admire, 
While Bently leads her sister art along, 
And bids the pencil answer to the lyre. 

See, in their course, each transitory thoaght, 
Fixed qy his touch, a lasting essence take } 

Each dream, in fancy's airy colouring wrought. 
To local symmetry and life awake ! 

The tardy rhymes, that used to linger on, 
To censure cold, and negligent of fame ; 

In swifter measures animated run, 

And catch a lustre from his genuine flame. 

Ah ! could they catch his strength, his easy gracSj 

His quick creation, his unerring line ; 
The energy of Pope they might efface, 

And Dryden's harmony submit to mine. 

But not to one in this benighted ag^ 

Is that diviner inspiration given, 
That burns in Shakspeare's or in Milton's pa§e, 

The pornp and prodigality of Heaven. 

As when conspiring in the Diamond's blaze, 
The meaner gems, that singly charm the sight. 

Together dart their intermingled rays, 
And dazzle with a luxury of light. 



GRAY'S LIFE.. 11 

Enough for me, if, to some feeling breast 

My lines a secret sympathy impart, 
And as their pleasing influence flows confessed, 

A sigh of soft reflection heave the heart. " 



It appears, by a letter to Dr. Wharton, that Gray 
finished his Ode on the Progress of poetry eai'ly in 
1755, the Bard also was begun about the same tin?e ; 
and the following beautiful Fragment on the Plea- 
sure arising from Vicissitude the nest year. The 
merit of the two former pieces was not immediately 
perceived, nor generally acknowledged. Garrick 
wrote a few lines in their, praise. Lloyd and Colman 
wrote, in concert, two Odes to " Oblivion" and " Ob- 
scurity," in which they were ridiculed with much in- 
genuity. 



'' Now the golden morn aloft 

Waves her dew-t>espangled wing 
With vermil cheek, and whisper soft, 

She woos the tardy spring; 
Till April starts, and calls around 
The sleeping fragrance from the ground, 
And lightly o'er the living scene 
Scatters his freshest, tenderest green, 

New-born flocks, in rustic dance, 
Frisking ply their feeble koi ; 

Forgetful of their wintery trancf , 
The birds his presence greet : 

But chief the skylark warbles high 

His trembling, thrilling ext?cy ; 



12 GRAY'S LIFE. 

And, lessening from the dazzled sight, 
Melts into air and liquid light. 

Yesterday the sullen year 

Saw the snowy whirlwind fly j 
Mute was the music of the air, 
The herd stood drooping by. 
Their raptures now, that wildly flow, 
No yesterday nor morrow know ; 
'Tis man alone that joy descries 
With forward and reverted eyes. 

Smiles on past misfortune's brow 
Soft reflection's hand can trace, 
And o'er the cheek of sorrow throw 

A melancholy grace : 
While hope prolongs our happier hour. 
Or deepest shades, that dimly lower, 
And blacken round our weary way, 
Gilds with a gleam of distant day. 

Still where rosy pleasure leads, 

See a kindred grief pursue. 
Behind the steps that misery treads 

Approaching comfort view ; 
The hues of bliss more brightly glow, 
Chastised by sabler tints of wo ; 
And blended form, with artiul strife. 
The strength and harmony of life. 

See the wretch^ that lonjf has tost 
Oo ihp thorny bed of Pain, 

At ier -^t!;i repiir his vigour lost, 
Aad breathe and walk again. 



GRAY'S LIFE. 13 

'llie meanest floweret of the vale. 
The simplest not« that swells the gale, 
The common sun, the air, the skies, 
To him are opening Paradise." 

' Our author's reputation, as a poet, was so liigh 
that, on the death of CoUey Gibber, in 1757, he had 
the honour of refusing the office of poet-laureat, to 
which he was probably induced by the disgrace 
brought upon it through the inability of some who 
had filled it. 

His curiosity some time after drew him away from 
Cambridge to a lodging near the British Museum, 
where he resided near three years, reading and tran- 
scribing. 

In 1762, on the death of Mr. Turner, professor of 
modern languages and history at Cambridge, he 
was, according to his own expression, " cockered 
and spirited up" to apply to lord Bute for the suc- 
cession. His lordship refused him with all the po- 
Jivcness of a courtier, the office having been previ- 
ously promised to Mr. Brocket, the tutor of Sir James 
Lowther. 

His health being on the decline, in 1765 he under' 
took a journey to Scotland, conceiving he should 
derive benefit from exercise and change of situation. 
His account of that country, as far as it extends, is 
curious and elegant ; for as his mind was compre- 
iiensive, it was employed in the contemplation of all 
the works of art, all the appearances of nature, anoi 
d'l the monuments of past events. 



14 GRAY'S LIFE. 

During his stay in Scotland, he contracted a fiienu- 
ship with Dv. Beattie, in whom he found, as he him- 
self expresses it, a poet, a philosopher, and a good 
man. Through the intervention of his friend tlie 
doctor, the Marischal College at Aberdeen offered 
him the degree of doctor of laws, which he thought 
it decent to decline, having omitted to take it at 
Cambridge. 

In December, 1767, Dr. Beattie, still desirous thrst 
his country should leave a memento of its regard to 
the merit of our poet, solicited his permission to print, 
at the University of Glasgow, an elegant edition of 
his works. Gray could not comply with his friend's 
request, as he had given his promise to Mr. Dodsley. 
However, as a compliment to them both, he present- 
ed them with a copy, containing a few notes, and 
the imitations of the old Norwegian poetry, intend- 
ed to supplant the Long Story, which was printed 
at first to illustrate Mr. Bently's designs. 

In 1768, our author obtained that office without 
solicitation, for which he had before applied withont 
effect. The professorship of languages and his- 
tory again became vacant, and he received an offer 
of it from the duke of Grafton, who had succeeded 
lord Bute in ofSce. The place was valuable in it- 
self, the salary being 4001. a year ; but it was ren- 
dered peculiarly acceptable to Mr. Gray, as he ob- 
tained it without solicitation. 

Soon after he succeeded to this office, the impair- 
ed state of his health rendered another journey ne- 
cessary ; and he visited, in 1769, the counties of 
Westmoreland and Cumberland, His remarks on 



GRAY'S LIFE. i& 

the wonderful scenery which these northern regions 
display, he transmitted inteflpsJEolary jaurnals to his 
friend, Dr. Wharton, which abound, according to 
Mr. Mason's elegant diction, with all the wildness of 
Salvator, and the softness of Claude. 

He appears to have been much affected by th€ 
anxiety he felt at holding a place without discharg- 
ing the duties annexed to it. He had always design- 
ed reading lectures, but never put it in practice j 
and a consciousness of this neglect, contributed not 
a little to increase the malady under which he had 
long laboured : nay, the office at length became so 
Irksome, that he seriously proposed to resign it. 

Towards the close of May, 1771, he removed from 
Cambridge to London, after having suffered violent 
attacks of an hereditary gout, to which he had long 
been subject, notwithstanding he had observed the 
most rigid abstemiousness throughout the whole 
course of his life. By the advice of his physicians, 
he removed from London to Kensington ; the air of 
which place proved so salutary, that he was soon 
enabled to return to Cambridge, whence he design- 
ed to make a visit to his friend, Dr. Wharton, at 
Old Park, near Durham ; indulging a fond hope that 
the excursion would tend to the ro-establishment of 
his health : but alas ! that hope proved delusive. 
On the 24th of July he was seized, v/hile at dinner 
in the College-hall, with a sudden nausea, which ob- 
liged him to retire to his chamber. The gout had 
fixed on his stomach in such a degree as to resist all 
the powers of medicine. On the 29th he was attack* 



16 GRAY'S LIFE. 

ed with a strong convulsion, which returned with in- 
creased violence the^nsHins^ day ;'and on the even- 
ing of the ^t of May,lT71, he departed this life 
in the 55th year of his age. 

From the narrative of his friend, Mr. Mason, it 
appears, that Gray was actuated by motives of 
self improvement, and self gratification, in his appli- 
cation to the Muses, rather than any view to pecu- 
niary emolument. His pursuits were in general dis' 
interested ; and as he was free from avarice on the 
one hand, so was he from extravagance on the other : 
being one of those few characters in the annals of 
literature, especially in the poetical class, who are 
devoid of se f interest, and at the same time atten- 
tive to economy ; but Mr. Mason adds, that he was 
induced to decline taking any advantage of his li- 
terary productions by a degree of j»ride, which in- 
fluenced him to disdain the idea of being thought 
an author by profession. 

It appears from the same narrative, that Gray 
made considerable progress in the stiidv of archi 
lecture, particularly the Gothic. He endeavoured to 
trace this branch of the science, from the period of 
its commencement, through its Various changes, 
till it arrived at its perfection in the time of Henry 
Vlll. He applied himself also to the study of he- 
raldry, of v/hich he obtained a very competent 
knowledge, as appears from his Remarks on Saxon 
Churches, in the introduction to Mr. Bentham's HiS' 
fory of Ely. 



GRAY'S LIFE. 17 

But the favourite study of Gray, for the last two 
years of his life, was natural history, which he ra- 
tlier resumed than began, as he had acquired some 
knowledge of botany in early life, while he was un- 
der the tuition of his uncle Antrobus. He wrote co- 
pious iflarginal notes to the works of Linnaius, and 
other writers in the three kingdoms of nature : and 
Mr. Mason further observes, that, excepting pure 
mathematics, and the studies dependent on that sci- 
ence, there was hardly any part of human learning 
in which he had not acquired a competent skill ; in 
most of them a consummate mastery. 

Mr. Mason has declined drawing any formal ch^,- 
racter of him : but has adopted one from a letter td 
Jamss BTiswell, esq. by the Rev. Mr. Temple, ret 
tor of St. Gluvias, in Cornwall, first printed anony- 
mously in the London Magazine, which, as we con- 
ceive authentic, from the sanction of Mr. Mason, we 
shall therefore transcribe. 

*■ Perhaps he was the most learned man in Europe. 
He was equally acquainted with the elegiant and pro- 
found parts of science, and that not superficially, 
but thoroughly. He knew every branch of history, 
both natural and civil ; had read all the original his- 
torians of England, France, and Italy ; and was a 
great antiquarian. Criticism, metaphysics, morals, 
and politics, made a principal part of his study j 
voyages and travels of all sorts were his favourite 
amuseiTtients ; and he had a fine taste in painting, 
prints, architecture, and gardening. With such a 
fund of knowledge, his conversation must have been 
B 2 



m GRAY'S LIFE. 

equally instraciing and entertaining ; but he was 
also a g-ood man, a man of virtue and humanity. 
There is no character without some speck, some im- 
perfection ; and I think tlie greatest defect in his 
was an affectation in delicacy, or rather effeminacy, 
and a visible fastidiousness, or contempt and dis- 
dain of his inferiors in science. He also had, in 
some degree, that weakness which disgusted Vol- 
taire so much in Mr, Congreve : though he seemed 
to value others chiefly according to the progress they 
had made in knowledge, yet he could not bear to be 
considered himself merely as a man of letters ; and 
though without birth, or fortune, or station, hiS^ de- 
sire was to be looked upon as a private ind jjendent 
gentleraan, who read for his amusement. Perhaps 
it may be said, What signifies so much knowledge, 
when it produced so little ? is it worth taking so 
much pains to leave no memorial but a few poems ? 
But let it be considered that Mr. Gray was, to others, 
at least innocently eraploved ; to himself, certainly 
beneficially. His time passed agreeably ; he was 
every day making some new acquisition in science ; 
his mind was enlarged, his heart softened, his virtue 
strengthened ; the world and mankind were shov/n 
to him without a mask ; and he was taught to consi- 
der every thing as trifling, and unworthy of the at- 
tention of a wise man, except the pursuit of know- 
ledge and practice of virtue, in that state whereia 
God hath placed us." 

In addition to this character, Mr. Mason has re- 
marked, that Gray's effeminacy was affected most 



C^RAY'S LIFE. 19 

feefore those whom he did not wish to please ; and 
tliat he is unjustly charged with making knowledge 
his sole reason of preference, ashe paid his esteem 
to none whom he did not likewise believe to be good. 

Dr. Johnson makes the following observations : — 
" What has occurred to me, from the slight inspec- 
tion of his letters, in which my undertaking has en- 
gaged me, is, that his mind had a large grasp ; that 
his curiosity was unlimited, and his judgment culti- 
vated ; that he was a man likely to love much where 
he loved at all, but that he was fastidious, and hard 
to please. His contempt, however, is often employ- 
ed, where I hope it will be approved, upon scepti- 
cism and infidelity. His short account of Shaftes- 
bury I will insert. 

" * You say you cannot conceive how lord Shaftes- 
bury came to be a philosopher in vogue ; I will tell 
you ; first, he was a lord ; secondly, he was as vain 
as any of his readers ; thirdly, men are very prone 
to believe what they do. not understand ; fourthly, 
they will believe any thing at all, provided they are 
under no obligation to believe it ; fifthly, they love to 
take a new road, even when that road leads no 
where ; sixthly, he was reckoned a fine writer, and 
seems always to mean more than he said. Would 
you have any more reasons ? An interval of above 
forty years has pretty well destroyed the charm. A 
dead lord ranks with commoners : vanity is no longer 
interested iu. the matter : for a new road is become 
an old one.' " 



20 GRAY'S LIFE. 

As a writer he had this peculiarity, that he did not 
write his pieces first rudely, and then correct them, 
but laboured every line as it arose in the train of 
composition ; and he had a notion not very peculiar, 
that he could not write but at certain times, or at 
happy moments ; a fantastic foppery, to which our 
kindness for a man of learning and of virtue wishes 
him to have been superior. 

As a poet he stands high in the estimation of the 
candid and judicious. His works are not numerous ; 
but they bear the marks of intense application, and 
careful revision. The Elegy in the Church-yard is 
deemed his master-piece ; the subject is interesting, 
the sentiment simple and pathetic^ and the versifi- 
cation charmingly melodious. This beautiful com 
position has been often selected by orators for the 
display of their rhetorical talents. But as the most 
finished productions of the human mind have not es- 
caped censure, the works of our author have under- 
gone illiberal comments. His Elegy has been sup- 
posed defective in want of plan. Dr. Knox, io his 
Essays, has observed, " that it is thought by .some to 
be no more tlian a confused heap of splendid ideas, 
thi'own together without order and without propor- 
tion." Some passages have been censured by Kelly 
in the Babbler ; and imitations of different authors 
hav^e been pointed out by other critics. But these 
imitations cannot be ascertained, as there are num- 
berless instances of coincidence of ideas ; so that it 
is difficult to say, with precision, what is or is not a 
designed or accidental imitation. 



GRAY'S LIFE. 2,1 

Oray, in his Elegy in the Church-yard, has great 
merit in adverting to the most interesting passions of 
the human mind , yet his genius is not marked alone 
by th^ tender sensibility so conspicuous in that ele- 
gant piece ; but there is a sublimity which gives it 
an equal claim to universal admiration. 

His Odes on The Progress of Poetry, and of The 
Bard, according to Mr. Mason's account, " breathe 
the high spirit of lyric enthusiasm. The transitions 
are sudden and impetuous ; the language full of fire 
and force ; and the imagery carrieii, without impro- 
priety, to the most daring heigh^ They have been 
accused of obscurity : but the tme can be obscure to 
those only who have not read Pindar ; and the other 
only to those who are unacquainted with the history 
of our own nation." 

Of his other lyric pieces, Mr. Wakefield, a learn*- 
ed and ingenious commentator, observes, that, 
though, like all other human productions, they are 
not without their defects, yet the spirit of poetry, 
and exquisite charms of the verse, are more than a 
compensation for those defects. The Ode on Eton 
College abounds with sentiments natural, and con- 
sonant to the feelings of humanity, exhibited with 
perspicuity of method, and in elegant, intelligible 
and expressive language. The Sennet on The Death 
of West, and the Epitaph on Sir William Williams, 
are as perfect compositions of the kind as any in our 
language. 

Dr. Johnson was confessedly a man of great ge- 
nius ; but the partial and uncandid mode of criti- 



ti^ GRAY S LIFE. 

cism he has adopted in his remarks oxi the writldgs 
of Gray, has given to liberal minds great and just 
offence. According to Mr. Mason's account, he has 
subjected Gray's poetry to the most rigorous exami« 
nation. Declining all consideration of the general 
plan and conduct of the pieces, he has confined 
himself solely to strictures on words and forms of 
expression ; and Mr. Mason very pertinently adds, 
that verbal criticism is an ordeal which the most 
perfect composition cannot pass without injury. 

He has also fallen under Mr. Wakefield's severest 
censure. This commentator affirms, that " he thinks 
a refutation of his strictures upon Gray a necessary 
service to the public, without which they might ope- 
rate with a malignant influence upon the national 
taste. His censure, however, is too general, and ex- 
pressed with too much vehemence ; and his remarks 
betray, upon the whole, an unreasonable fastidious' 
ness of taste, and an unbecoming iiliberality of spi- 
rit. He appears to have turned an unwilling eye 
upon the beauties of Gray, because his jealousy 
would not suffer him to see such superlative merit ir. 
a cotemporary." These remarks of Mr. Wakefiekl 
appear to be well founded ; and it has been observ- 
ed, by another writer, that Dr. Johnson, bein^ 
strongly influenced by his political and religioui 
principles, was inclined to treat with the utmost se 
verity, some of the productions of our best writers ; 
to which may be imputed that severity with whicl* 
he censures the lyric performances of Gray. It i , 
highly probable that no one poetical reader will uni 



, GRAY'S LIFE. . 23 

vevsally subscribe to his decisions, though all <naay 
admire his vast intuitive knowledge, and power of 
discrimination. 

In one instance, the doctor's inconsistency, and 
deviation from his general character, does him ho- 
nour. After having commented with the most rigid 
severity on the poetical works of Gray, as if con- 
scious of the injustice done him, he seems to apolo- 
gize by the following declaration, which concludes his 
criticism, and shall conclude the memoirs of our au- 
thor. 

" In the character of his Elegy (says Johnson) I 
riijoice and concur with the common reader ; for, by 
the common sense of readers, uncorrupted with li- 
terary prejudices, all the refinements of subtilty, 
and the dogmatism of learning, must be finally de- 
cided, all claim to poetical honours. The Church- 
yard abounds with images which find a mirror in 
every mind, and with sentiments to which every bo- 
som returns an echo. The four stanzas beginning, 
Yet, t'en these bones, are to me original ; I have never 
seen the notions in any other place ; yet he that 
reads them here, persuades himself that he has al- 
ways felt them. Had Gray written often thus, it 
had been vain to blarae, and useless to praise him," 



LETTERS 



OF 



THOMAS GRAY, 



FROM MR. WEST* TO MR. GRAY. 

Yot7 use me very cruelly : you have sent me but one 
letter since I have been at Oxford, and thai too 
agreeable not to make me sensible how great my 
loss is in not having more. Next to seeing you is 
the pleasure of seeing your hand-writhig ; next to 
hearing you is the pleasure of hearing from you. — 
Really and sincerely I wonder at you, that you 
thought it not worth while to answer my lagt letter, 
I hope this will have better success in behaii of your 

* Mr. West's father was lord chancellor of Ireland. His 
grandfather, by the mother, the famous bisijop Bu/net. He re- 
moved from Kion to Oxford, about the -^aiTie time that Mr. 
Gray left that place for Cambririge. In April, 1738, he left 
Christ Church for the Inner leniple, and Mr. Gray removed 
from Peterhouse to town the latter end of thai year ; intending 
also to apply himself to the study of the law in the game society 
C 



26 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

quondam school-fellow ; in behalf of one who has 
walked hand in hand with you, like the two children 
in the wood, 

Through many a flowery path and shelly grot, 
Wher^ learning lulled us in her private maze. 

The very thought, you see, tips my pen with poetry, 
and brings Eton to my view. Consider me very se- 
riously here in a strange country, inhabited by things 
that call themselves doctors and masters of arts ; a 
country flowing with syllogisms and ale, where Ho- 
race and Virgil ai'e equally unknown } consider me, 
I say, in this melancholy light, and then think if 
something be not due to 

Yours, 

Christ Churcli, Nov. 14, 1735, 

P. S. I desire you will send me soon, and truly and 
positively, a History of your own Tipae.* 

11. 

TO MR. WEST. 

Permit me again to write to you, though I have so 
long neglected my duty, and forgive my brevity, 
when I tell you, it is occasioned wholly by the hurry 
I am in to get to a place where I expect to meet with 
no other pleasure than the sight of you ; for I am 
preparing for London in a few days at furthest. I 
do not wonder in the least at your frequent blaming 

* AUuding to his grandfather's history. 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 2l 

my indolence, it ought rather to be called ingrati- 
tude, and I am obliged to your goodness for soften- 
ing so harsh an appellation. When we meet, it will, 
howevef , be my greatest of pleasures to know what, 
you do, what you read, and how you spend your 
titaae, &.c. he. and to tell you what I do not read, and 
how I do not, &c. for almost all the employment of 
my hours may be best explained by negatives i take 
my word and experience upon it, doing nothing is a 
most amusing business ; and yet neither something 
nor nothing gives me any pleasure. When you have 
seen one of my days, you have seen a whole year of 
my life ; they go round and round like the blind 
horse in the mill, only he has the satisfaction of fan- 
cying he makes a progiess, and gets some ground ; 
my eyes are open enough to see the same dull pros- 
pect, and to know that having made four-and-twenty 
steps more, I shall be just where I was : I ma} , better 
than most people, say my life is but a span, were I 
not afraid lest you should not believe that a person 
so short-lived could write even so long a letter as 
this ; in short, I believe I must not send you the his- 
tory of my own time, till I can send you that also of 
the Reformation.* However, as the most undeserv- 
ing people in the world must sure have the vanity to 
wish somebody had a regard for them, so I need not 
wonder at ray own, in being pleased that you care 
about me. You need not doubt, therefore, of having 
a first row in the front box of my little heart, and 

* Carrying on the allusion to th« other hi«tory written by Mr. 
West's randfather. 



28 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

I believe you are not in danger of beinj* crowded 
there; it is asking you to an old play, indeed, but 
you will be candid enough to excuse the whole piece 
for the sake of a few tolerable lines. 

For this little while past I have been playing with 
Statius ; we yesterday had a game at quoits together ; 
you will easily forgive me for having broke his head, 
as you have a little pique to him. I send you my 
translation, which I did not engage in because I liked 
that part of the poem, nor do I now send it to you 
because I think it deserves it; but merely to show you 
liow i mispend my days. 

Third in the labours of the Disc came on, 
With sturdy step and slow, Hippomedon, &c. 

Cambridge, May 8, 1736. 

III. 

FROM MR. WEST. 

I AGKEE with you that you have broke Statius's headj 
but it is in like manner as Apollo broke Hyacinth's, 
you have foiled him infinitely at his own weapon : I 
must insist on seeing the rest of your translation, 
and then I will examine it entire, and compare it 
with the Latin, and be very wise and severe, and put 
on an inflexible face, such as becomes the character 
of a true son of Aristarchus, of hypercritical memo- 
ry. In the meanwhile. 

And calmed tlie terrors of Iiis claws in gold, ' 



GRAY'S LETTERS. il9 

iS exactly Statins — Summos auro raansueverat un- 
gues. I never knew before that the golden fangs on 
hammercloths were so old a fashion. Your Hyme- 
neal I was told was the best in the Cambridge col- 
lection before I saw it, and, indeed, it is no great 
compliment to tell you I thought it so when I had 
seen it, but sincerely it pleased me best. Methinks 
the college bards have run into a strange taste on 
this occasion. Such soft immeaning stuff about Ve- 
nus and Cupid, and Peleus and Thetis^ aqd Zephyrs 
and Dryads, was never read. As for my poor little 
Eclogue, it has been condemned and beheaded by 
Ocir Westminster judges : an exordium of about six- 
teen lines absolutely cut off, and its other limbs quar- 
tered in a most barbarous manner. I will send it you 
in my next as my true and lawful heir, in exclusion 
of the pretender, who has the impudence to appear 
under my name 

As yet I have not looked into Sir Isaac. Public 
disputations I hate; mathematics I reverence ; his- 
tory, morality, and natural philosophy have the 
greatest charms in my eye; but who can forget poe- 
try .'' they call it idleness, but it is surely the most 
enchanting thing in the world, " ac dulce otium et 
paene omni negotio pulchriui;." 

I am, dear Sir, yours while I am 

R. VV, 

Christ Churcli, May 24, 1736. 



C 2 



30 GRAY'S LETTERS 

IV. 

TO MR. WEST. 

You must know that I do not take degrees, and, af- 
ter this term, shall have nothing- more of colleg^e im- 
pertinences to undergo, which I trust will be some 
pleasure to you, as it is a great one to me. I have 
endured lectures daily and hourly since I came last, 
supported by the hopes of being shortly at full liberty 
to give myself up to my friends and clcfssical com- 
panions, who, poor souls ! though I see them fallen 
into great contempt with most people here, yet I 
cannot help sticking to them, and out of a spirit of 
obstinacy (I think) love them the better for it ; and, 
indeed, what can I do else ? Must I plunge into me- 
taphysics ? Alas ! I cannot see in the dark ; nature ' 
has not furnished me with the optics of a cat. Must 
I pour upon mathematics .'' Alas ! I cannot see in 
too much light ; I am no eagle. It is very possible 
that two and two mak-e four, but 1 would not give 
four farthings to demonstrate this ever so clearly ; 
and if these be the profits of life, give me the amuse- 
ments of it. The people I behold all around me, it 
seems, know all this and more, and yet I do not 
know one of them who inspires me with any ambi- 
tion of being like him. Surely it was not this place, 
now Cambridge, but formerly known by the name of 
Babj'lon, that the prophet spoke when he said, " the 
wild beasts of the desert shall dwell there, and their 
tioHses shall be full of doleful creatures, and owk 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 31 

shall build there, and satyrs shall dance there ; their 
forts aiKl towers shall be a den forever, a joy of wild 
asses ; there shall the great owl make her nest, and 
lay andAatch and gather under her shadow ; it shall 
be a court of dragons ; the screech owl also shall rest 
there, and find for herself a place of rest." You see 
here is a pretty collection of desolate animals, which 
is verified in this town to a tittle, and pei'haps it may 
also allude to your habitation, for you know all types 
may be taken by abundance of handles; however, 
I defy your owls to match mine. 

If the default of your spirits and nerves be nothing 
tint the efiect of the hyp, I have no more to say. — 
We all must submit to that wayward queen : I too in 
no small degree own her sway. 

I feel her indueaice while I speak her power. : 

But if it be a real distemper, pray take more care of 
your health, if not for your own at least for our 
sakes, and do not be so soon weary of this little 
world : I do not know what refined* friendships you 
may have contracted in the other, but pray do not be 
ill a hurry to see your acquaintance above ; among 
your terrestrial familiars, however, though I say it 
that should not say it, there positively is not one that 
has a greater esteem for you than 

Yours most sincerely, &c. 
Peterhouse, Dec. 1706. 

* Perhaps he meant to ridicule the affected mcinner of MxB, 
ilowe's letters from the dead to Ae living. 



^ GKAY'S LETTERS. 

V. 
FROM MR. WEST. 

i CONGRATULATE jou On your being about to leave 
college,* and rejoice much you carry no degrees with 
you. For I would not have You dignified, and I not, 
for the world, you would have insulted me so. My 
eyes, such as they are, like yours, are neither meta- 
physical nor mathematical ; I have, nevertheless, a 
great respect for your connoisseurs that way, but am 
always contented to be their humble admirer. Your 
collection of desolate animals pleased me so much : 
but Oxford, I can assure you, has her owls that 
match yours, and the prophecy has certainly a squint 
that way. Well, you are leaving this dismal land of 
bondage, and which way are you turning your face ? 
Your friends, indeed, may be happy in you, but what 
will you do with your classic companions .'' An inn 
of court is as horrid a place as a college, and a moot 
case is as dear to gentle dulness as a syllogism. But 
wherever you go, let me beg you not to throw poe- 
try, *' like a nauseous weed away ;" cherish its sweets 
in your bosom; they will serve you now and then to 
correct the disgusting sober follies of the common 
law, misce stultitiam consiliis brevem, dulce est de^ 

* I suspect that Mr. West mistook liis correspondeiit ; who, 
in'saying he did not take degrees, meant only to let his friend 
imowthathe should soon be released from lectures and disputa- 
tions. It is certain that Mr. Gray continued at college near two 
yeai's after the time he wrote the preceding letter. 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 83 

sipere in loco ; so said Horace to Virgil, those two 
sons of Anak in poetry, and so say I to you in this 
degenerate land of pigmies, 

Mix with your grave designs a little pleasure, 
Each day of business has its hour of leisure. 

In one of these hours I hope, dear Sir, you will 
sometimes think of me, write to me, and know me 
yours, 

that is, write freely to me and openly, as I do to you, 
and to give you a proof of it I have sent you an ele- 
gy of Tibullqs translated, Tibullus,you must know, 
is ray favourite elegiac poet ; for his language is 
more elegant and his thoughts more natural than 
Ovid's. Ovid excels him only in wit, of which no 
poet had more in my opinion. The reason I choose 
so melancholy a kind of poesie, is because my low 
spirits and constant ill health (things in me not ima- 
ginary, as you surmise, but too real, alas! and I fear, 
constitutional) " have tuned my heart to elegies of 
wo ;" and this likewise is the reason why I am the 
most irregular thing alive at college, for you may de- 
pend upon it I value my health above what they call 
discipline. As for this poor unlicked thing of an ele- 
gy, pray criticise it unmercifully, for I send it with 
that intent. Indeed your late translation of Statius 
anight have deterred me : but I know you are not 
*aor« ajjle to excel others, than you are apt to forgive 



34 GRAY'S LETTiaiS, 

the want of excellence, especially when it is found 
in the productions of 

Your most sincere friend. 
Ohrist Church, Dec. 22, 1736.J 



vi. 



'JtO MR. WALPOLE. 

tov can never weary me with the repetition of any 
thing that makes me sensible of your kindness : 
since that has been the only idea of any social hap- 
piness that I have almost ever received, and which 
(begging your pardon for thinking so differently from 
you in such cases) 1 would by no means have parted 
with for an exemption from all the uneasinesses mixed 
with it : but it would be unjust to imagine my taste 
was any rule for yours ; for which reason my letters 
are shorter and less frequent than they would be, 
had I any materials but myself to entertain you with. 
Love and brown sugar must be a poor regale for one of 
your goAt, and, alas ! you know I am by trade a gro- 
cer.* Scandal (if I had arty) is a merchandize you 
do not profess dealing in ; now and then, indeed, and 
to oblige a friend, you may perhaps slip a little out of 
your pocket, as a decayed gentlewoman would a piece 

* L e. A man who deals only in coarse and ordinary wares ; 
to these he compares the plain sincerity of his own friendship 
undisguised by flattery; which, had he chosen to carry on the 
allusion, he might have termed the trade of a confectioner. 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 3& 

of right mecklin, or a little quautity of run tea, but 
this only now and then, not to make a practice of it. 
Monsters appertaining to this climate you have seen 
already, both wet and dry. So you perceive within 
how narrow boynds my pen is circumscribed, and 
the whole contents of my share in our correspond- 
ence may be reduced under the two heads of Jstj 
You, 2dly I ; the first is, indeed, a subject to expa- 
tiate upon, but you might laugh at me for talking 
about what I do not understand ; the second is so 
tiny, so tiresome, that you shall hear no more of it 
than that it is ever 

Yoiirs. 

JPeterbouse, Dec. 23, 1736, 

VIL 

FROM MR. WEST, i 

I HAVB been very ill, and am still hardly recovered. 
Do you remember Elegy 5th, Book the 3d, of Tibul 
lus, Vos tenet, &.c. and do you remember a letter o 
Mr. Pope's, in sickness, to Mr. Steele .' This melan- 
choly elegy, and this melancholy letter, I turned into 
a more melancholy epistle of >my own, during my 
sickness, in the way of imitation ; and this I send to 
you and my friends at Cambridge, not to divert them, 
for it cannot, but merely to show them how sincere 
I was when sick : I hope my sending it to them now 
may convince them I am no less sincere, though 
perhaps more simple, when well. 



36 GRAY'S LETTERS. 



AD AMICOS.* 



Yes, happy 3'ouths, on Camus' sedgy side. 
You feel eachjoy that friendship can divide ; 
Each realm of science and of art explore, 
And with the ancient blend the modern lore. 
Studious alone to learn whate'er may tend 
To raise the genius or the heart to mend ; 
Now pleased along the cloistered walk you rove, 
And trace the verdant mazes of the grove, 
Where social oft, and oft alone, he chose 
To catch the zephyr and to court the muse. 
Meantime at me (while all devoid of art 
These lines give back the image of my heart) 
At me the power that comes or soon or late, 
Or aims, or seems to aim, the dart of fate ; 
From you remote, methinks, alone 1 stand 
Like some sad exile in a desert land ; 
Around no friends their lenient care to join 
In mutual warmth, and mix their heart with mine 
Or real pains, or those which iu&cy raise, 
For ever blot tKe sunshine of my days ; 
To sickness^^lil, and still to grief a prey, 
Health turns from me her rosy face away. 
Just Heaven ! what sin, ere life begins to bloohi. 
Devotes my head untimely to the tomb ? 
Did e'er this hand against a brother's life 
Drug the dire bowl, or point the murderous knife ? 

* Almost all TibuUus's elegy is imitated in this little piece, 
iifom whence his transition to Mr. Pope's letter is verj^ artfully 
contrived, and bespeaks a degree of judgment much beyond Mr 
West's years. 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 37 

Did e'er this tongue the slanderer's tale proclaim. 

Or madly violate my Maker's name ? 

Did e'er this heart betray a friend or foe, 

Or know a thought but all the world might know ? 

As yet, just started from the lists of time, 

My growing years have scarcely told their prime j 

Useless, as yet, through life I've idly run, 

No pleasures tasted, and few duties done. 

* Ah, who, ere autumn's mellowing suns appear, 

Would pluck the promise of the vernal year ? 

Or, ere the grapes their purple hue betr ay, 

Tear the crude cluster from the mourning spray .'' 

Stern Power of Fate, whose ebon sceptre rules 

The Stygian deserts and Cimmerian pools, 

Forbear, nor rashly smite my youthful heart, 

A victim yet unworthy of thy dart ; 

Ah, stay till age shall blast my withering face, 

Shake in my head, and falter in my pace ; 

Then aim the shaft, then meditate the blow, 

t And to the dead my willing shade shall go. 

How weak ic "Ian to Rieason's judging eye ! 
Born in this moment, in the nex* we die ; 
Part mortal clay, and part ethereal fire, 
Too proud to creep, too humble to aspire. 
In vain our plans of happiness we raise, 
Pain is our lot, and patience is our praise j 

* Quid fraudare juvat vitem crescentibus uvis ? 
Et mode nata mala vellere poma manu ? 

So the original. The paraphrase seems to me infinitely more 
beautiful. There is a peculiar blemish in the second line, aris- 
ing from the synonimes t-.ala and pom;. 

tHere he quits TibuUus : the ten following verses have but ft 
remote reference to Mr. Pope's letter, 
D 



3S GRAY'S LETTERS. 

Wealth, lineage, honours, conquest, or a throne, 
Are what the wise would fear to call their own. 
Health is at best a vain precarious thing, 
And fair-faced youth is ever on the wing ; 
*'Tis like the stream, beside whose watery bed 
Some blooming plant exalts his flowery head, 
Nursed by the wave the spreading branches rise, 
Shade all the ground and flourish to the skies ; 
The waves the while beneath in secret flow, 
And undermine the hollow bank below j 
Wide and more wide the waters urge their way. 
Bare all the roots, and on their fibres prej'. 
Too late the plant bewails his foolish pride, 
And sinks, untimeh', in the whelming tide. 

But why repine ? does life deserve my sigh r 
Few will lament my loss whene'er I die. 
IFof those the wretches I despise or hate, 
I neither envy nor regard their fate. 
For me, whene'er all-conquering Death shall spread 
His wings around ipy unrepining head, 

' * " Youth, at the very best, is but the betrayer of liurnan life 
in a gentler and smoother manner than age ; 'tis like the stream 
that nourishes a plant upon a bank, and causes it to flourish and 
blossom to the sight, but at the same time is undermining it at 
the root in secret." Pope's Wcrhs. vol. 7, page 254, ist edit. 
FTarburton. Mr. West, by prolonging his paraphrase of this 
simile, gives it additional beautj' from that very circumstance, 
but he ought to have introduced it by Mr. Pope's own thought. 
"Youth is a betrayer;" his couplet preceding the simile con- 
veys too genercd a reflection. 

t " I am not at all uneasy at the thought that many men, whom 
I never had any esteem for, are likely to enjoy this world afttT 
me." Vide ibid. 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 89 

■*! care not j though this face be seen no morej 
The world will pass as cheerful as before ; 
Bright as before the day-star will appear, 
The fields as verdant, and the skies as clear ; 
Nor Sfbrms nor comets will my doom declare, 
Nor signs on earth, nor portents in the air ; 
Unknown and silent will depart my breath, 
Nor Nature e'er take notice of my death. 
y et some there are (ere spent mv vital days) 
Within whose breasts my tomb I wish to raise. 
Loved in my life, lamented in my end. 
Their praise would crown me as their precepts mend : 
To them may these fond lines my name endo»-« 
INot from the Poet but the Friend sincere. 

Christ Church, July 4, 1737. 

VIII. 
TO MR. WEST. 

After a month's expectation of you, and a fort- 
night's despair, at Cambridge, I am come to town, 

* ^^ The morning after my exit the sun will rise as bright as 
ever, the flowers smeil as sweet, the plants spring as green ;"' so 
far Mr. West copies his original, but instead t)f the following 
part of the sentence, " People will laugh as heartily and marry 
as fast as they used to do," he inserts a more solemn idea, 

Nor storms nor comets, &c. 

justly perceiving that the elegiac turn of his epistle would not 
admit so ludicrous a thought, as was in its place in Mr. Pope's 
familiar letter; so that we see, j'oungas he wag, he had obtain 
ed the art of judiciou'^ly selecting ; one of the first provinces of 
good taste. 



40 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

and to better hopes of seeing you. If what you sent 
me last be the product of your melancholy, what 
may I not expect from your more cheerful hours ? 
For by this time the ill health that you complain of 
is (I hope) quite departed ; though, if 1 were self- 
interested, I ought to wish for the continuance of 
any thing that could be the occasion of so much plea- 
sure to me. Low spirits are my true and faithful 
companions \ they get up with me, go to bed with 
me, make journeys and returns as I do; nay, and 
pay visits, and will even affect to be jocose, and force 
a feeble laugh with me : but most commonly we sit 
alone together, and are the prettiest insipid company 
in the world. However, when you come, I believe 
they must undergo the fate of all humble compa- 
nions, and be discarded. Would 1 could turn them 
to the same use that you have done, and make an 
Apollo of ihem. If they could write such verses with 
me, not hartshorn, nor spirit of amber, nor all that 
furnishes the closet ol an apothecary's widow, 
should persuade me to part with them : but, while 
I write to you, I hear the bad news of lady VVal- 
pole's death on Saturday night last. Forgive me if 
the thought of what my poor Horace must feel on 
that account, obliges me to have done in reminding 
you that I am 

Yours, &c. 
London, Aug. 22, 1737. 



GRAY'S LETTERS, 41 

IX. 

TO MR. WALPOLE. 

I WAS isindercd in my last, and so could not give 
you all the trouble I would have done. The descrip- 
tion of a road, which your coach wheels have so 
often honoured, it would be needless to give you : 
suffice it that I arrived &afe* at my uncle's, who is 
a great hunter in imagination ; his dogs take up 
every chair in the house, so I am forced to stand at 
this present writing •, and though the gout forbids 
him galloping after them in the field, yet he con- 
tinues still to regale his ears and nose with their 
comfortable noise and stink. He holds me mighty 
cheap, I perceive, for walking when I should ride, 
and i-eading when I should hunt. My comfort 
amidst all this is, that I have, at the distance of half 
a mile, through a green lane, a forest (the vulgar 
call it a common) all my own, at least as good as so, 
for I spy no human thing in it but myself. It is a 
little chaos of mountains and precipices ; mountains, 
it is true, that do not ascend much above the clouds, 
nor are the declivities quite so amazing as Dover 
cliff J but just such hills as people who love their 
necks as well as I do may venture to climb, and 
crags that give the eye as much pleasure as i/ they 
were more dangerous : both vale and hill are cover- 
ed with most venerable beeches, and other very re- 

* At Burnhanj|in Buckhighamshire. 
D 2 



42 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

verend vegetables, that, like most other ancient peo- 
ple, are always dreaming out their old stories to the 
windS) 

And as tliey bow their hoary tops relate, 

In murmuring- sounds, the dark decrees of fate ; 

While visions, as poetic eyes avow, 

Cling to each leaf and swarm on every bough. 

At the foot of one of these squats me I, (il penseroso) 
and there grow to the trunk for a whole morning. 
The timorous hare and sportive squirrel gambol 
around me like Adam in Paradise, before he had an 
Eve ; but I think he did not use to read Virgil, as I 
commonly do there. In this situation I often con- 
verse with my Horace, aloud too, that is talk to you, 
but [ do not remember that I ever heard you answer 
me. I beg pardon for taking all the conversation to 
myself, but it is entirely your own fault. We have 
old Mr. Southern at a gentleman's house a little way 
off, who often comes to see us : he is now seventy- 
seven years old, and has almost wholly lost his me- 
mory ; but is as agreeable as an old man can be, at 
least I persuade myself so when I look at him, and 
think of Isabella and Oroonoko. I shall be in town 
in about three weeks. Adieu. 
September, 1737. 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 43 



TO MR. WALPOLE.* 



I SYMPATHIZE with you in the sufferings which you 
foresee are coming upon you. We are both at pre- 
sent, I imagine, in no very agreeable situation ', for 
my part I am under the misfortune of having nothing 
to do, but it is a misfortune which, thank my stars, 
I can pretty well bear. You are in a confusion of 
wine, and roaring, and hunting, and tobacco, and, 
heaven be praised, you too can pretty well bear it ; 
while our evils are no more, I believe we shall not 
much repine. I imagine, however, you will rather 
choose to converse with the living dead, that adorn 
the walls of your apartments, than with the dead liv- 
ing that deck the middles of them ; and prefer a pic- 
ture of still life to the realities of a noisy one, and, 
as I guess, will imitate what you prefer, and for an 
hour or two at nodfti will stick yourself up as formal 
as if you had been fixed in your frame for these hun- 
dred years, with a pink or rose in one hand, and a 
great seal ring on the other. Your name, I assure 
you; has been propagated in these countries by a 
convert of yours, one * * ^ ; he has brought over 
his whole family to you : they were before pretty 
good Whigs, but now they are absolute Walpolians. 
We have hardly any body in the parish but knows 
exactly the dimensions of the hall and saloon at 

* At this time with Ms father at Houghton. 



44 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

Houghton, and begin to believe that the *lantern is 
not so great a consumer of the fat of the land as 
disaffected persons have said : for your reputation, 
we keep to ourselves your not hunting nor drinking 
began, either of which here would be sufficient to 
lay your honour in the dust To-morrow se'nnight 
I hope to be in town, and not long after at Cam- 
bridge. 

I am, &c. 

Buruham, Sept, 1737. 

XL 

TO MR. WALPOLE. 

My dear Sir, I should say tMr. Inspector General 
of the Exports and Imports ; but that appellation 
would make but an odd figure in conjunction with 
the three familiar monosyllables above written, foT 

Nun bene conveniunt nee in una sede morantur 
Majestas et amor. ^ 

Which is being interpreted, Love does not live at 
the Custom-house ; however, by what style, title or 
denomination soever you choose to be dignified or 
distinguished hereafter, these three words will stick 
by you like a bur, and you can no more get quit of 
these and your christian name than St, Anthony 
could of his pig. My motions at present (which you 

* A favourite object of Tory satire at the time. 
t Mr. Walpole was just named to thatpost, which he exchanged 
soon after for that of Usher of the Exchequer.^ 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 45 

are pleased to ask after) are much like those of a 
pendulum or ("Dr. Longically speaking) oscillatory, 
I swing from chapel or hall home, or from home to 
chapel or hall. All the strange incidents that hap- 
pen in JBy journeys and returns I shall be sure to ac- 
quaint you with ; the most wonderful is, that it now 
rains exceedingly, this has refreshed the tprospect, 
as the way for the most part lies between green 
fields on either hand, terminated with buildings at 
some distance, castles, I presume, and of great anti- 
quity. The roads are very good, being, as I suspect, 
the works of Julius Cajsar's array, for they still pre- 
serve, in many places, the appearance of a pavement 
in pretty good repair, and, if they were not so near 
home, might perhaps be as much admired as the Via 
Appia _; there are at present seyeral rivulets to be 
crossed, and which serve to enliven the view all 
areund. The country is exceeding fruitful in ravens 
and such black cattle ; but, not to tire you with my 
travels, I abruptly conclude. 

Yours, &c. 
August, 1738. 

XIL 

TO MR. WEST. 

I AM coming away all so fast, and leaving behind 
me, without the least remorse, all the beauties of 

* Dr. Long, the master of Pembroke-Hall, at this time read 
lectures in exiwrimenta! philosophy. 

t All that follows is a humorously hyperbolic description of the 
Quadrangle of Peter-House. 



4.6 GRAY'S LETTERS 

Sturbridge Fair. Its white bears may roar, its apes 
may wring their hands, and crocodiles cry their eyes 
out, all's one for that ; 1 shall not once visit them, 
nor so much as take my leave. The university has 
published a severe edict against schisraatical congre- 
gations, and created half a dozen new little procter- 
lings to see its orders executed, being under mighty 
apprehensions lest *Henley and his gilt tub should 
come to the (air and seduce their young ones ; but 
their pains are to small purpose, for lo, after all, he 
is not coming. 

I am at this instant in the very agonies of leaving 
college, and would not wish the worst of my enemies 
a worse situation. If you knew the dust, the old 
boxes, the bedsteads, and tutors that are about my 
ears, you would look upon this letter as a great ef- 
fort of my resolution and unconcernedness in the 
midst of evils. I fill up my paper with a loose sort 
of version of that scene in Pastor Fido that begins, 
Care selve beati.t 

Sept. 1733. 

xiir. 

TO HIS MOTHER. 

Amiens, April l,'^ N. S. 1739. 
As we made but avery short journey to-day, and came 
to our inn early, I sit down to give you some account 

* Orator Henley. 

t This Laim version is extremely elegiac, biit as it is on'4^ a 
rsrsion I do not insert it 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 41 

of our expedition. On the 29th (according to the style 
here) we left Dover at tv/elve at noon, and with a 
pretty brisk gale, which pleased every body mighty 
well, except myself, who was extremely sick the 
whole time ; we reached Calais by five : the wea- 
ther changed, and it began to snow hard the minute 
we got into the harbour, where we took the boat, and 
soon landed. Calais is an exceeding old, but very 
pretty town, and we hardly saw any thing there that 
was not so new and so different from England, that 
it surprised us agreeably. We went the next morn- 
ing to the great church, and were at high mass (it 
being Easter Monday). We saw also the Convent 
of the Capuchins, and the nuns of St. Dominic ; with 
these last we held much conversation, especially with 
an English nun, a Mrs. Davis, of whose work I sent 
you, by the return of the pacquet, a letter-case tore- 
member her by. In the afternoon we took a post- 
chaise (it still snowing very hard) for Boulogne, 
which was only eighteen miles further. This chaise 
is a strange sort of conveyance, of much greater use 
than beauty, resembling an ill-shaped chariot, only 
with the door opening before instead of the side ; 
three horses draw it, one between the shafts, and the 
other two on each side, on one of which the postillion 
rides, and drives too.* This vehicle will, upon oc- 
casion, go fourscore miles a day, but Mr. Walpole, 
being in no hurry, chooses to make easy journeys of 
it, and they are easy ones indeed ; f^^r the motion i* 
much like that of a sedan ; we go about six rrjjles 

*" Ti-Js was before the introduction of pos(-cIuu«cs here, or it 
wouVl not have .ippcarcd a circumstance worthy notice. 



4S GRAY'S LETTERS. 

an hour, and commonly change horses at the end of 
it. It is true they are no very graceful steeds, but 
they go well, and through roads which they say are 
bad for France, but to me they seem gravel walks 
and bowling-greens ; in short, it would be the finest 
travelling in the world, were it not for the inns, 
which are mostly terrible places indeed. But to de- 
scribe our progress somewhat more regularly, we 
came into Boulogne when it was almost dark, and 
went out pretty early on Tuesday morning ; so that 
all I can say abbut it is, that it is a large, old, fortifi- 
ed town, with more English in it than French. On 
Tuesday we were to go to Abbeville, seventeen 
leagues, or fifty-one short English miles ; but by the 
way we dined at Moutreuil, much to our hearts' con- 
tent, on stinking mutton cutlets, addled eggs, and 
ditch water. Madame the hostess made her appear- 
ance in long lappets of bone lace, and a sack of lin- 
sey-woolsey. We supped and lodged pretty well at 
Abbeville, and had time to see a little of it before we 
came out this morning. There are seventeen con- 
vents in it, out of which we saw the chapels of the 
Minims and the Carmelite nuns. We are now come 
further thirty miles to Amiens, the chief city of the 
province of Picardy. We have seen the cathe- 
dral, which is just what that of Canterbury must have 
been before the reformation. It is about the same 
size, a huge Gothic building, beset on the outside 
with thousands of small statues, and within adorned 
with beautiful painted windows, and a vast number 
of chapels dressed out in all their finery of altar- 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 49 

' jjjieces, embroidery, gilding, and marble. Over the 
high altar are preserved, in a very large wrought 
shrine of massy gold, the rehcs of St. Firmin, their 
patron saint. We went also to the chapels of the Je- 
suits anS Ursuline nuns, the latter of which is very 
richly adorned. To-morrow we shall lie at Cler- 
mont, and next day reach Paris. The country we 
have passed through hitherto has been flat, open, 
but agreeably diversified with villages, fields well-cul- 
tivated, and little rivers. On every hillock is a wind- 
mill, a crucifix, or a Virgin Mary dressed in flowers, 
and a sarcenet robe ; one sees not many people or 
carriages on the road; now and then indeed you 
meet a strolling friar, a countryman with his great 
muiT, or a woman riding astride on a little ass, 
with short petticoats, and a great head-dress of blue 
wool. * * * 

XIV. 

TO MR. WEST. 

Paris, April 12, 1739. 
Enfin done me voici a Paris. Mr. Walpole is gone 
out to supper at lord Conway's, and here I remain 
alone, though invited too. Do not think I make a 
merit of writing to you preferably to a good supper ; 
for these three days we have been here, have actual- 
ly given me an aversion to eating in general. Jf 
hunger be the best sauce to meat, the French are cer- 
tainly the worst cooks in the world ; for what tables 
we have seen have been so delicately served, and so 
E 



so GRAY'S LETTERS. 

profusely, that, after rising from one of them, one 
imagines it impossible ever to eat again. And now, 
if I tell you all I have in my head, you will believe 
me mad ; mais n'importe, courage, allons ! for if 
I wait till my head grow clear and settle a little, 
you may stay long enough for a letter. Six days 
have we been coming hither, which other people 
do in two : they have not been disagreeable ones ; 
through a fine, open country, admirable roads, and 
in an easy conveyance ; the inns not absolutely into- 
lerable, and images quite unusual presenting them- 
selves on all hands. At xAmier»° we saw the fine ca- 
thedral, and eat pate de pe"' ' , fjassed through the 
park of Chantilly by the dutce of Bourbon's palace, 
which we only beheld as we passed ; broke down at 
Lausarche ; stopped at St. Denis, saw all the beau- 
tiful monuments of the kings of France, and the 
vast treasures of the abbey, rubies, and emeralds as 
big as small eggs, crucifixes and vows, crowns and 
reUc(uaires, of inestimable value ; but of all their curi- 
osities the thing the most to our tastes, and which 
they indeed do the justice to esteem the glory of their 
collectiOTi, was a vase of an entire onyx, measuring 
at least five inches over, three deep, and of great 
thickness. It is at least two thousand years old, the 
beauty of the stone and sculpture upon it (represent- 
ing the mysteries of Bacchus) beyond expression 
admirable ; we have drearned of it ever since. The 
jolly old Benedictine, that showed us the treasures, 
had in his youth been ten years a soldier ; he laugh- 
ed at all the relics, was very full of stories, and migh- 
ty obliging. On Saturday evening we got to Paris 



GKAY'S LETTERS. 51 

and were driving through the streets a long while 
before we knew where we were. The minute we 
came, voila Milors Holdernesse, Conway, and his 
brotiier ; all stayed supper, and till two o'clock in 
tlve Qiortling, for here no body ever sleeps ; it is not 
the way. iNext day go to dine at my lord Holder- 
nesse's, there was the Abbe Prevdt, author of the 
Cleveland, and several other pieces much esteemed : 
the rest were English. At night we went to the Pan- 
dore J a spectacle literally, for it is nothing but a 
beautiful piece of machinery of three scenes. The 
first represents the chaos, and by degrees the sepa- 
ration of the elements : the second, the temple of Ju- 
piter, and the giv» *' the box to Pandora: the 
third, the opening of the box, and all the mischiefs 
that ensued. An absurd design, but executed in the 
highest perfection, and that in one of the finest thea- 
tres in the world ; it is the grande sale des machines 
in the palais des Tuilleries. JNext day dined at lord 
Waldegrave's ; then to the opera. Imagine to your- 
self for the drama four acts* entirely unconnected with 
each other, each founded on soxne little history, skil- 
fully taken out of an ancient author, e. g. Ovid's Me- 
tamorphoses, &,c. and with great address converted 
into a French piece of gallantry. For instance, that 
which I saw, called the Ballet de la Paix, had its first 
act built upon the story of Nireus. Homer having 
said that he was the handsomest man of his time, the 

* The French opera has only three acts, but often a prologue 
en a different subject, which (as Mr. Walpole informs me, who 
saw it at the same time) was the case iu this very representa» 
tioa. 



52 feRAt'S LETTERS. 

poet, imagining such a one could not want a mistresS; 
has given him one. These two come in and sing sen- 
timent in lamentable strains, neither air nor recita- 
tive : only, to one's great joy, they are every now and 
then interrupted by a dance, or (to one's great sor- 
row) by a chorus that borders the stage from one 
end to the other, and screams, past all power of si- 
mile to represent. The second act was Baucis and 
Philemon, Baucis is a beautiful young shepherdess, 
and Philemon her swain. Jupiter falls in love with 
her, but nothing will prevail upon her ; so it is all 
mighty well, and the chorus sing and dance the praises 
of Constancy. The two other acts were about Iphis 
and Janthe, and the judgment of Paris. Imagine, I 
say, all this transacted by cracked voices, trilling di- 
visions upon two notes and a half, accompanied by 
an orchestra of humstrums, and a whole house more 
a'ttentive than if Farinelli sung, and you will almost 
have tormed ajust notion of the thing. Our astonish- 
ment at iheir absurdiry you can never conceive ; we 
had enough to do to express it by screaming an hour 
louder than the whole dramatis personae. We have 
also seen twice the Comedie Franco ise ; first, the 
Mahomet Second, a tragedy that has had a great 
run of late ; and the thing itself does not want its 
beauties, but the actors are beyond measure delight- 
ful. Mademoiselle Gausin (M. Voltaire's Zara) has 
with a charming (though little) person the most pa- 
thetic tone of voice, the finest expression in her face, 
and most proper action imaginable. 1^ jre is also a 
Dufr^ne, who did the chief character, a handsome 
man and a prodigious fine actor. The second we saw 



aKAY'S LETTERS. 53 

i>. as the Philosophe made, and here they performed 
as well in comedy ; there is a Mademoiselle Qainault 
somewhat in Mrs. Clive's way, and a Monsieur Grand- 
val. in the nature of Wilks, who is the genteelest 
thing' ilf the world. There are several more would be 
much admired in England^ and many (whom we have 
not seen) much celebrated here. Great part of our 
time is spent in seeing churches and palaces full of 
fine pictures, &.c. the quarter of which is not yet ex- 
hausted. For my part, I could entextain myself this 
month merely with the common streets and the peO' 
pie in them. * * * 

XV. 

TO MR. WEST. 

Paris, May 22, 1739. 
After the little particulars aforesaid I should have 
proceeded to a journal of our transactions for this 
week past, should have carried you post from hence 
to Versailles, hurried you through the gardens to Tri- 
anon, back again to Paris, so away to Chantilly. But 
the fatigue is perhaps more than you can bear, and 
moreover I think I have reason to stomach your last 
piece of gravity. Supposing you were in your so- 
berest mood, I am sorry you should think me capable 
of ever being so dissipe, so evapore, as not to be in 
a condition of relishing any thing you could say to me. 
And nowr, ifv^ou have a mind to make your peace 
with me, arouse ye from your megrims and your 
melancholies, and (for exercise is good for you) 
E 2 



64 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

throw away your night-cap, call for your jack-boots, 
and set out with me, last Saturday evening:, for Ver- 
sailles — and so at eight o'clock, passing through a 
road speckled with vines, and villas, and hares, and 
partridges, we arrive at the great avenue, flanked on 
either hand with a double row of trees about half a 
niile long, and with the palace itself to terminate the 
view ; fficing which, on each side of you, is piacf^d a 
semi-circle of very handsome buildings, which form 
the stables. These we will not enter into, because 
you know we are no jockies. Well' and is this the 
great front of Versailles ? What a huge heap of lit- 
tleness ! it is composed, as it were of three courts, 
all open to the eye at once, and gradually diminishing 
till you come to the royal apartments, which on this 
side present but half a dozen windows and a balcony. 
This last is all that can be called a front, for the rest 
is only great wings. The hue of all this mass is black, 
dirty red, and yellow ; the first proceeding from stone 
changed by age ; the second, from a mixture of brick ; 
and the last, from a profusion of tarnished gilding. 
You cannot see a more disagreeable tout-eusembie j 
and, to finish the matter, it is all stuck over in many 
places with small busts of a tawny hue between every 
two windows. We pass through this ro go into the 
g'arden, and here the case is indeed altered ; nothing- 
can be vaster and more magnificent than the back 
front ; before it a very spacious terrace spreads it- 
self, adorned with two large basins ; these are bor- 
dered and lined (as most of the others) with white 
marble, with handsome statues of bronze reclined on 
fheir edges. From hence you descend a huge flight 



OKAY'S LETTERS. S5 

of steps into a semi-circle formed by woods, that are 
cut all round into niches, which are filled with beau- 
tiful copies of all the famous antique statues in white 
aarble. Just in the midst is the basin of Latona ; 
she awrf her children are standing on the top of a rock 
in the middle, on the sides of which aie the peasants, 
some half, some totally changed into frogs, all which 
throw out water at her in great plenty. From this 
place runs on the great alley, which brings vou into 
a complete round, where is the basin of Apollo, the 
bigaest in the gardens. He is rising in his car out 
of the water, surrounded by nymphs and tritons, all 
ill bronze, and finely executed ; and these, as they 
play, raise a perfect storm about him : beyond -this 
is the great canal, a prodigious long piece of water, 
that terminates the whole. All this you have at one 
couj) d'oeil in entering the garden, which is truly great. 
I cannot say as much of the general taste of the 
place ; every thing you behold savours too niuch of 
art ; all is forced, all is constrained about you ; sta- 
tues and vases sowed every where without distinction; 
sugar-loaves and minced-pies of yew ; scrawl-work 
cf box, and little sqnirtingjets-d'eau, besides a great 
sameness in the walks, cannot help striking one at 
fii*st sight, not to mention the silliest of labyrinths, 
a&id ail -^sop's fables in water ; since these were de- 
signed in usum Delphini only. Here then we walk 
by moon- light, and hear the ladies and the nightin- 
gales sing. Next morning, being Whitsunday, make 
leady to go to the Installation of nine knights dtt 



B6 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

Saint Esprit, Cambis is one :* high mass celebrated 
with music, great crowd, much incense, king, queen, 
dauphin, mesdames, cardinals, and court ! knights ar- 
rayed by his majestji ; reverences before the altar, not 
bows, but curtsies ; stiff hams } much tittering among 
the ladies ; trumpets, kettle-drums, and fifes. My dear 
"West, I am vastly delighted with Trianon, all of us 
with Chantilly ; if you would know why, you must 
have patience, for I can hold my pen no longer, ex- 
cept to tell you that [ saw Britannicus last night ; all 
the characters, particularly Agrippina and Nero done 
toperfection; to -morrow Phaedra and Hippolytus. We 
are making you a little bundle of petite pieces ; there 
is nothing in them, but they are acting at present ; 
there are two Crebillon's Lotters, and \musemens 
sur le langage des Betes, said to be of one Bougeant, 
a Jesuit ; they are both esteemed, and lately come 
out. This day se'nnight we go to Rheims. 

XVI. 

TO HIS MOTHER. 

Rheims, June 21, N. S. 173&. 
We have now been settled almost three weeks in this 
city, which is more considerable upon account of its 
size and antiquity, than from the number of its in- 
habitants, or any advantages of commerce. There is 

^ The Comte de Cambis was lately returned from his embas- 
sy in England. 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 51 

little in it worth a stranger's curiosity, besides the 
cathedral church, which is a vast Gothic building of 
a surprising beauty and lightness, all covered over 
with a profusion of little statues, and other orna- 
ments. *It is here the kings of France are crowned 
by the archbishop of Rheims, who is the first peer, 
and the primate of the kingdom The holy vessel 
made use of on that occasion, which contains the oil, 
is kept in the church of St. Nicasius hard by, and is 
believed to have been brought by an angel from hea- 
ren at the coronation of Clovis, the first Christian 
king. The streets in general have but a melancholy 
aspect, the houses all old ; the public walks run along 
the side of a great moat under the ramparts, where 
one hears a continual croaking of frogs ; the country 
round about is one great plain covered with vines, 
which at this time of the year afibrd no very phas- 
ing prospect, as being not above a foot high. What 
pleasures the place denies to the sight, it makes up 
to the palate ; since you have noth.ingto drink but 
the best champaigne in the world, and all sorts of 
provisions equally good. As to other pleasures, 
there is not that freedom of conversation among the 
people of fashion here, that one sees in other parts 
of France ; for though they are not very numerous 
in this place, and consequently must live a good deal 
together, yet they never come to any great familiari- 
ty with one another. As my lord Conway had spent 
a good part of his time among them, his brother, 
and we with him, were soon introduced into all their 
assemblies. As soon as you enter, the lady of thft 



5S GRAY'S LETTER^. 

house presents each of you a card, and offers you % 
party at quadrille, you sit down, and play forty deals 
without intermission, excepting one quarter of an 
hour, when every body rises to eat of what they call 
the gouter, which supplies the place of our tea, and 
is a service of wine, fruits, cream, sweetmeats, craw- 
fish, and cheese. People take what they like and sit 
down again to play ; after that, they make little par- 
ties to go to the walks together, and then ail the com- 
pany retire to tlieir separate habitations. Very sel- 
dom any suppers or dinners are given; and this is 
the manner they live among one another ; not so 
much out of any aversion they have to pleasure, as 
out of a 8ort of formality they have contracted by not 
being much freqiu-nted by people who have lived at 
Paris It is sure they do not hate gayety any more 
than the rest of their country-people, and can enter 
into diversions, that are once proposed, with a good 
grace enough ; for instance, the other evening we 
happened to be got together in a company of eigh- 
teen people, men and women of the best fashion here, 
at a garden in the town, to walk; when one of the 
ladies bethought herself of asking, why should not we 
sup here ? Immediately the cloth was laid by the side 
of a fountain and^r the trees, and a very elegant sup- 
per served up : after which another said. Come, let 
us sing; and directly began herself From singing 
we insensibly fell to dancing, and singing in around: 
when somebody mentioned the violins, and immedi- 
ately a company of them was ordered. Minuets 
were begun in the open air, and then some country- 



GRAY'S LETTERS. ^ 

dances, which held till four o'clock next morning- ; at 
which hour the gayest lady there proposed, that 
such as were weary should get into their coaches, 
and the*est of them should dance before them with 
the music in the van ; and in this manner we parad- 
ed through all the principal streets of the city, and 
waked every body in it Mr. Walpole had a mind to 
make a custom of the thing, and would have given a 
ball in the same manner next week, but the women 
did not come into it ; so I believe it will drop, and they 
will return to their dull cards, and usual formalities. 
We are not to sfay above a month longer here, and 
shall then go to Dijon, the chief city of Burgundy, a 
very splendid and a very gay town ; at least such is 
the. present design. 

XVII. 

TO HIS FATHER. 

" Dijon, Friday, Sept. 11, N. S. 173S. 
We have made three short days' journey of it from 
Rheims hither, where we arrived the night before 
last. The road we have passed through has been 
extremely agreeable : it runs through the most fer- 
tile part of Champaigne by the side of the river 
Marne, with a chain of hills on each hand at some 
distance, entirely covered with woods and vineyards, 
and every now and then the ruins of some old castle 
on their tops : we lay at St. Dizier the first night, 
an(? at Langres the second, and got hither the next 



60 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

evening time enough to have a full view of this city 
in entering it. It lies in a very extensive plain co- 
vered with vines and corn, and consequently is plen- 
tifully supplied with both. I need not tell you that 
it is the chief city of Burgundy, nor that it is of great 
antiquity ; considering which one should imagine it 
ought to be larger than one finds it. However, what 
it wants in extent is made up in beauty and cleanli- 
ness, and in rich convents and churches, most of 
which we have seen. The palace of the States is a 
magnificent new building, where the duke of Bour- 
bon is lodged when he comes every three years to 
hold that assembly, as governor of the province. A 
quarter of a mile out of the town is a famous abbey 
of Carthusians, which we are just returned from 
seeing. In their chapel are the tombs of the ancient 
dukes of Burgundy, that were so powerful, till, at 
the death of Charles the Bold, the last of them, this 
part of his dominions was united by Louis XI, to the 
crown of France. To-morrow we are to pay a vi- 
sit to the abbot of the Cistercians, who lives a few 
leagues off, and who uses to receive all strangers 
with great civility ; his abbey is one of the rich^^st in 
the kingdom ; he keeps open house always, and 
lives with great magnificence. We have seen enough 
of this town already, to make us regret the time we 
spent at Rheims ; it is full of people of condition^ 
who seem to form a much more agreeable society 
than we found in Champaigne ; but as we shall stay 
here but two or three days longer, it is not worth 
while to be introduced into their houses. On Mon- 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 6,1 

day or Tuesday we are to set out for Lyons, which 
is two days' journey distant, and from thence you 
shall hear again from me. 



xviir. 

TO MR. WEST. 

Lyons, Sept. 13, N. S. I73§. 
ScAVEZ vous bien, mon cher ami, que je vous hais, 
que je vous deteste .'' voila des termes un peu fortes ; 
and that will save me, upon a just computation, a 
page of paper and six drops of ink ; which, if I 
confine(f myself to reproaches of a more moderate 
nature, I should be obliged to employ in using you 
according to your deserts. What ! to let any body 
reside three months at Rheims, and write but once 
to them ? Please to consult Tully de Amicit. page 
5, line 25, and you will find it said in express terms, 
" Ad amicum inter Remos relegatum mense uno 
quinquies scriptum esto ;" nothing more plain, or 
less liable to false interpretations. Now because, I 
suppose, it will give you pain to know we are in be- 
ing, 1 take this opportunity to tell you that we are 
at the ancient and celebrated Lugdunum, a city si- 
tuated upon the confluence of the Rh6ne and Sa6ne 
(Arar, I should say) two people, who, though of 
tempers extremely unlike, think fit to join hands 
here, and make a little party to travel to the Medi- 
terranean in company : the lady comes gliding along 
through the fruitful plains of Burgundy, incredibili 
F 



62 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

ienitate, if a ut oculis in utram partem fluit judicari 
non possit ; the gentleman runs all rough and roar-, 
ing- down from the mountains of Switzerland to 
meet her ; and with all her soft airs she likes hira 
never the Whrse : she goes through the middle of the 
city in state, and he passes incog, without the walls, 
but waits for her a little below. The houses here 
are so high, and the streets so narrow, as would be 
sufficient to render Lyons the dismallest place in the 
world; but the number of people, and the face of 
commerce diffused about it, are, at least, as sufficient 
to make it the liveliest. Between these two sufficien- 
cies, you will be in doubt what to think of it^ so we 
shall leave the city, and proceed to its environs, 
which are beauliful beyond expression : it is sur- 
rounded with mountains, and those mountains all 
bedropped and bespcckled with houses, gardens, 
and plantations of the rich Bourgeois, who have from 
thence a prospect of the city in the vale below on 
one hand, on the other the rich plains of the Lyon- 
nois, with the rivers winding among them, and the 
Alps,. with the mountains of Dauphine, to bound the 
view. All yesterday morning we were busied in 
climbing up Mount Fourviere, where the ancient 
city stood perched at such a height, that nothing but 
the hopes of gain could certainly ever persuade their 
neighbours to pay them a visit. Here are the ruins 
of the emperors' palaces, that resided here, that is 
to say, Augustus and Severus : they consist in no- 
thing but great masses of old wall, that have only 
their quality to make them respected. In a vine 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 03 

yard of the Minims are reaiains of a theatre ; the 
fathers, whom they belong to, hold them in no es- 
teem at all, and would have showed us their sacristy 
and chapel instead of them. The Ursuline Nuns 
have in their garden some Roman baths, but we 
having the misfortune to be men, and heretics, they 
did not think proper to admit us. Hard by are eight 
arches of a most magnificent acjueduct, said to be 
erected by Antony, when his legions were quartered 
here : there are many other parts of it dispersed up 
and doWu the country, for it brought the water from 
a river many leagues off in La Forez. Here are re- 
mains too of Agrippa's seven great roads which met 
at Lyons ; in some places they lie twelve feet deep 
in the ground In short, a thousand matters that 
you shall not know, till you give me a description of 
the Pais de Tombridge, and the effect its waters have 
ypon you. 

XIX. 

FROM MR. WEST. 

Temple, Sep. 28, 1739. 
If wishes could turn to realities, I would fling down 
my law books, and sup with you to-night. But, 
alas ! here I am doomed to fix, while you are flutter- 
ing from city to city, and enjoying all the pleasures 
which a gay climate can afford- It is out of the 
power of my heart to envy your good fortune, yet 
I cannot help indulging a few natural desires ; as 



64 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

for example, to take a walk with you on the banlis 
of the Rhone, and to be climbing up mount Four- 
viere ; 

Jam mens praetrepidans avet vagari : 
Jam lasti studio ipedes vigescunt. 

However, so long^ as I am not deprived of your cor- 
respondence, so long shall I always find some plea- 
sure in being- at home. And, setting all vain curiosi- 
ty aside, when the fit is over, and my reason begins 
to come to herself, I have several other powerful 
motives which might easily cure me of mj? restless 
inclinations. Amongst these, my mother's ill state 
of health is not the least, which was the reason of 
our going to Tunbridge ; so that you cannot expect 
much description or amusement from thence. Nor 
indeed is there much room for either ; for all diver- 
sions there may be reduced to two articles, gaming 
and going to church. They were pleased to publish 
certain Tunbrigiana this season ; but such ana ! I 
believe there were never so many vile little verses 
put together before. So much for Tunbridge. Lon- 
don affords me as little to say. What ! so huge a 
town as London ? Yes, consider only how I live in 
that town. I never go into the gay or high world, 
and consequently receive nothing from thence to 
brighten my imagination. The busy world I leave 
to the busy ; and am resolved never to talk politics 
till I can act at the same time. To tell old stories, 
or prate of old books, seems a little musty ; and 
toujours chapon bouilli, won't do. However, for 



GCAY'S LETTTRS. 65 

want of better fare, take another little mouthful of 
my poetry. 

O meae jucunda comes quietis ! 
* Quae fere segrotum solila es levare 
Pectus, et sensim, ah 1 nimis ingTuenles 
Fallere curas: 

Quid canes ? quanto Lyra die furore 
Gesties, qtiando hie reilucera sodalem ' 
Glauciam* gaudere simul videbis 

Meque sub umbrsLf 

XX. 

TO HIS MOTHER. 

Lyons, Oct. 13, N. 8.1739. 

It is now almost five weeks since I left Dijon, one 
of the gayest and most agreeable little cities of 
France, Yor Lyons, its reverse in all these particu- 
lars. It is the second in the kingdom in bigness and 
rank ; the streets excessively narrow and nasty ; 
the houses immensely high and large ; (that, for in- 
stance, where we are lodged, has twenty -five rooms 
on a floor, and that for five stories ;) it swarms with 
inhabitants like Paris itself, but chiefly a mercantile 
people, too much given up to commerce to think of 
their own, much less of a stranger's divprsions. 
We have no acquaintance in the town, but such Eng- 
lish as happen to be passing through here, m their 

*He gives Mr. Gray the name of Glaucias frequently in his 
Latin verse, as Mr. Gray calls him f'avonius. 
F 2 



66 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

way to Italy and the south, which at present happen 
to be near thirty in number, ft is a fortnight since 
we set out from hence upon a little excursion to Ge- 
neva. We took the long^est road, which lies through 
Savoy, on purpose to see a famous monastery, call- 
ed the Grande Chartreuse, and had no reason to 
think our time lost. After having travelled seven 
days very slow (for we did not change horses, it be- 
ing impossible for a chaise to go post in these roads) 
we arrived at a little village among the mountains of 
Savoy, called Echelles ; from thence we proceeded 
on horses, who are used to the way, to the mountain 
of the Chartreuse. It is six miles to the top ; the 
road runs winding up it, commonly not six feet 
broad ; on one hand is the rock, with woods of pine- 
trees lianging over head ; on the other a monstrous 
precipice, almost perpendicular, at the bottom of 
which rolls a torrent, that sometimes tumbling 
among the fragments of stone that have fallen from 
on high, and sometimes precipitating itself down 
vast descents with a noise like thunder, which is still 
made greater by the echo from the mountains on 
each side, concurs to form one of the mos#solemn, 
the most romantic, and the most astonishing scenes 
I ever beheld. Add to this the strange views made 
by the crags and cliffs on the other hand ; the cas- 
cades that in many places throw themselves from the 
very summit down into the vale, and the river below; 
and many other particulars impossible to describe ; 
you will conclude we had no occasion to repent our 
pains. This place St. Bruno chose to retire to, and 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 67 

upon its very top founded the aforesaid convent, 
which is the superior of the whole order. When we 
came there, the two fathers, who are commissioned 
to entertain strangers (for the rest must neither 
speah^ne to another, nor to any one else,) received 
us very kindly ; and set before us a repast of dried 
fish, e^gs, butter, and fruits, all excellent in their 
kind, and extremely neat. They pressed us to spend 
the night there, and to stay some days with them ; 
but this we could not do, so they led us about their 
house, which is, you must think, like a little city; 
for there are 100 fathers, besides 300 servants, that 
make ■ their clothes, grind their corn, press their 
wine, and do every thing among themselves. The 
whole is quite orderly and simple ; nothing of finery, 
but the wonderful decency, and the strange situ- 
ation, more than supply the place of it. In the 
evening we descended by the same way, passing 
through many clouds that were then forming them- 
selves on the mountain's side. Next day we conti- 
nued our journey by Chamberry, which, though the 
chief city of the duchy, and residence of the king 
of Sardinia, when he comes into this part of his do- 
ininions, makes but a very mean and insignificant 
appearance ; we lay at Aix, once famous for its hot 
baths, and the next night at Annecy ; the day after, 
by noon, we got to Geneva. I have not time to say 
any thing about it, nor of our solitary journey back 
again. - * -• 



68 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

XXL 

TO HIS FATHER. 

Lyons, Oct. 25, N. S. 1739. 
In my last I gave you the particulars of our little 
journey to Geneva; I have only to add, that we 
stayed about a week, in order to see Mr. Conway 
settled there. \ do not wonder so many English 
choose it for their residence ; the city is very small, 
neat, prettily built, and extremely populous ; the 
Ilh6ne runs through the middle of it, and it is sur- 
rounded with new fortifications, that give it a miUtary 
compact air ; which, joined to the happy, lively coun- 
tenances of the inhabitants, and an exact discipline 
always as strictly observed as in time of war, makes 
the little republic appear a match for a much greater 
power ; though perhaps Geneva, and all that belongs 
to it, are not of equal extent with Windsor and its 
two parks. To one that has passed through Savoy, 
as we did, nothing can be more striking than the 
contrast, as soon as he approaches the town. Near 
the gates of Geneva runs the torrent Arve, which 
separates it from the king of Sardinia's dominions ; 
on the other side of it lies a country natiirally, in - 
deed, fine and fertile ; but you meet with nothing in 
it but meager, ragged, bare-footed peasants, vvith 
their children, in extreme misery and nastiness : 
and even of these no great numbers. You no sooner 
feave crossed the stream I have naentioned, but po- 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 69 

verty is no more ; not a beggar, hardly a discon- 
tented face to be seen , numerous, and well-dressed 
people swarming on the ramparts ; drums beating, 
soldiers^ well-clothed and armed, exercising j and 
folks, with business in their looks, hurrying to and 
fro ; all contribute to make any person, who is not 
blind, sensible what a difference tiiere is between 
the two governments, that are the causes of one 
view- and the other. The beautiful lake, at one end 
of which the town is situated ; its extent ; the se- 
veral states that border upon it ; and all its plea- 
sures, are too well known for me to mention them. 
We sailed upon it as far as the dominions of Geneva 
extend, that is, about two leagues and a half on each 
side ; and landed at several of the little houses of 
pleasure that the inhabitants have built all about it, 
who received us with much politeness. The same 
night we eat part of a trout, taken in the lake, that 
weighed thirty-seven pounds : as great a monster as 
it appeared to us, it was esteemed there nothing ex- 
traordinary, and they assured us, it was not uncom" 
mon to catch them of filty pounds : they are d ress 
ed here, and sent post to Paris upon some great oc- 
casions ; nay, even to Madrid, as we were told. The 
road we returned through was not the same we came 
by ; we crossed the Rhone at Seyssel, and passed 
for three days among the mountains of Bugey, with- 
out meeting with any thing new ; at last we came 
out into the plains of La Bresse, and so to Lyons 
again. Sir Robert has written to Mr Walpole, to 
desire he would go to Italy, which he has resolved 



70 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

to do ; so that all the scheme of spending the win- 
ter in the south of France is laid aside, arid we are 
to pass it in a much finer country. You may ima- 
gine I am not sorry to have this opportunity of see- 
ing the place in the world that best deserves it : he- 
sides, as the pope, who is eighty-eight, and has been 
lately at the point of death, cannot probably last a 
great while, perhaps we may have the fortune to be 
present at the election of a new one, when Home 
will be in all its glory. Friday next we certainly 
begin our journey ; in two days we shall come to 
the foot of the Alps, and six more we shall be in 
passing them. Even here the winter is begun ; what 
then must it be among those vast snowy mountains 
where it is hardly ever summer .' We are, however, 
as well armed as possible against the cold, with 
muffs, hoods, and masks of beaver, fur-boots, and 
bear skins. When we arrive at Turin, we shall rest 
after the fatigues of the journey. * ♦ * 

XXIL 

TO HIS MOTHER. 

Turin, Nov. 7, N. S. 1739. 

I AM this night arrived here, and have just sat down 
to rest me after eight days' tiresome journey : for 
the three first we had the same road we before pass^ 
ed through to go to Geneva ; the fourth we turned 
out of it, and for that day and the next travelled 
rather among than upon the Alps \ the way com- 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 71 

mon!y running through a deep valley by the side of 
the river Arc, which works itself a passage, with 
great difficulty and a mighty noise, among vast quan- 
tities ^f rocks, that have rolled down from the 
mountain tops. The wmter was so far advanced, 
as in great measure to spoil the Ueauty ofthepios- 
pect } however, there was still somewhat fine remain- 
ing amidst Ihe savageness and horror of the place 
The sixth we began to go up several of these moun- 
tains ; and as we were passing one, met with an odd 
accident enough : Mr. Walpole had a little fat black 
spaniel, that he was very fond of, which he some- 
times used to set down, and let it run by the chaise 
side. We were at that time in a very rough road, 
not two yards broad at most ; on one side was a 
great wood of pines, and on the other a vast preci- 
pice ; it was noon-day, and the sun shone bright, 
when all of a sudden, from the wood-side, (which 
was as steep upwards as the other part was down- 
wards) out rushed a great wolf, came close to the 
head of the horses, seized the dog by the throat, and 
rushed up the hill again with him in his mouth. 
This was done in less than a quarter of a minute ; 
we all saw it, aid yet the servants had not time to 
draw their pistols, or do any thing to save the dog. 
If he had not been there, and the creature had 
thought fit to lay hold of one of the horses ; chaise, 
and we, and all must inevitably have tumbled above 
fifty fathoms perpendicular down the precipice. 
The seventh we came to Lanebourg, the last town in 
Savoy ; it lies at the foot of the famous Mpunt Cg. 



72- GRAY'S LETTERS. 

nis, which is so situated as to allow no room for any 
way but over the verj top of it. Here the chaise 
Was forced to be pulled to pieces, and the bag-gage 
and that to be carried by mules : we ou!selves were 
wrapped up in our furs, and seated upon a sort of 
matted chair without legs, which is carried upon 
poles in the manner of a bier, and so begun to as- 
cend by the help of eight men. It was six miles to 
the top, where a plain opens itself about as many 
more in breadth, covered perpetually with very deep 
snow, and in the midst of that a great lake of un- 
fathomable depth, from whence a river takes its 
rise, and tumbles over monstrous rocks quite down 
the other side of the mountain. The descent is six 
miles more, but infinitely more steep than the going 
up ; and here the men perfectly fly down with you, 
Stepping from stone to stone with incredible swift- 
ness in places where none but they could go three 
paces without falling. The immensity of the preci- 
pices, the roaring of the river and torrents that run 
into it, the huge crags covered with ice and snow, 
and the clouds below you and about you, are objects 
it is impossible to conceive without seeing them ; 
and though we had heard many sti^nge descriptions 
of the scene, none of them at all came up to it. We 
were but five hours in performing the whole, from 
which you may judge of the rapidity of the men's 
motion. We are now got into Piedmont, and stop- 
ped a little while at La Ferriere, a small village 
about three quarters of the way down, but still 
among the clo«dg, where we began to hear a new 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 73 

language spoken round about us ; at last we got quite 
down, went through the Pasde Suse, a narrow road 
among the Alps, defended by two fortresses, and 
lay afe Bossolens : next evening, through a fine 
avenue of nine miles in length, as straight as a line, 
we arrived at this city, which, as you know, is the 
capital of the principality, and the residence of the 
king of Sardinia.*** We shall stay here, 1 believe, 
a fortnight, and proceed for Genoa, which is three 
or four days' journey, to go post. 

I am, kc. 

XXIII. 

TO MR. WEST, 

Turin, Nov. 16, N. S. 1739. 
After eight days' journey through Greenland, we 
arrived at Turin — you approach it by a handsome 
avenue of nine miles long, and quite straight. The 
entrance is guarded by certain vigilant dragons, 
called Douaniers, who mumbled us for some time. 
The city is not large, as being a place of strength, 
and consequently confined within its fortifications ; 
it has many beauties and some faults ; among the 
first are streets all laid out by the line, regular unL» 

*** That part of the letter here omitted, contEuned only a de- 
scription of the city ; which, as Mr. Gray has given it to Mn 
West in the following letter, and that in a more lively mannerj 
I thought it unnecessary to insert ; a liberty I have taken ie 
ether parts of this correspondence, in order to avoid repetjtloas 
G 



74 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

form buildings, fine walks that surround the whole, 
and in general a good lively clean appearance ; but 
the bouses are of brick, plastered, which is apt to 
want repairing ; the windows of oiled paper, which 
is apt to be torn ; and every thing very slight, which 
is apt to tumble down. There is an excellent opera, 
but it is only in the carnival : balls every night, but 
only in the carnival : masquerades too, but only in 
the carnival. This carnival lasts only from Christ- 
mas to Lent ; one half of the remaining part of the 
year is passed in remembering the last, the other in 
expecting the future carnival. We cannot well sub- 
sist upon such slender diet, no more than upon an 
execrable Italian comedy, and a puppet-show, call- 
ed Rappresentazione d'un' anima dannata, which, I 
think, are all the present diversions of the place j 
except the Marquise de Cavaillac's conversazione, 
where one goes to see people play at ombre and 
taroc, a game with 72 cards all painted with suns, 
and moons, and devils, and monks. Mr. Walpole 
has been at court ; the family are at present at a 
country palace, called La Venerie. The palace here 
in town is the very quintessence of gilding and look- 
ing-glass ; inlaid floors, carved panels, and paint- 
ing wherever they could stick a brush. 1 own I 
have not, as yet, any where met with those grand 
and simple works of art, that are to amaze one, and 
whose sight one is to be the better for : but those 
of nature have astonished me beyond expression. 
In our little journey up to the Grande Chartreuse 
I do not remember to have gone ten paces without 
an exclamation, that there was no restraining. Not 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 76 

a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant 
with religion and poetry. There are certain scenes 
that would awe an atheist into belief, without the 
help (>T other argument. One need not have a very 
fantastic imagination to see spirits there at noon- 
day : you have death perpetually before your eyes ; 
only so far removed, as to compose the mind with- 
out frighting it. lam well persuaded St. Bruno 
was a man of no common genius, to choose such a 
situation tor his retirement ; and perhaps should 
have been a disciple of his, had I been born in his 
time. You may believe Abelard and HeloYse were 
not forgot upon this occasion; if 1 da not mistake, 
I saw you too every now and then at a distance 
araonij; the trees; il me sembie, que j'ai vu ce chien 
de visage la quelque part. You seemed to call to 
me from the other side of the precipice, but the 
noise of the river below was so great, that I really 
could not distinguish what you said ; it seemed to 
have a cadence like verse. In your next you will be 
so good to let me know what it was. The week we 
have since passed among the Alps, has not equalled 
the single day upon that mountain, because the win- 
ter was rather too far advanced, and the weather a 
little foggy. However, it did not want its beauties; 
the savage rudeness of the view is inconceivable 
without seeing it : I reckoned, in one day, thirteen 
cascades, the least of which was, 1 dare say, one 
hundred feet in height. I had Livy iip^the chaise 
with me, and beheld his " Nives coelo prope iministae, 
tecta inforniia imposita rupibus, pecora jumontaque 
torrida frigore, homines intonsi et incuiti, animalia 



1f6 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

inanitnaque omnia rigentia geln; omnia confragosa, 
praeruptaque." The creatures that inhabit them 
are, in all respects, below humanity ; and most of 
them, especially women, have the tumidum guttur, 
which they call goscia. Mont Cenis, 1 confess, car- 
ries the permission mountains have of being fright- 
ful rather too far ; and its horrors were accompanied 
with too much danger to give one time to reflect 
upon their beauties. There is a family of the Al- 
pine monsters I have mentioned, upon its very top, 
that in the middle of winter calmly lay in their stock 
of provisions and firing, and so are buried in their 
hut for a month or two under the snow. When we 
were down it, and got a little way into Piedmont, we 
began to find '' Apricos quosdam coUes, rivosque 
prope silvas, et jam humano cultu digniora loca." 
I read Silius Italicus too, for the first time ; and 
wished for you, according to custom. — We set out 
for Genoa in two days' time. 

XXIV. 

TO MR. WEST. 

Genoa, Nov. 21, n39. 

HOiTidos tracttls, Borespque linquens 
Regna Taiirini fera, moUiorem 
Advehor brumam, Genuaeque araantes 
W Litora soles. 

At least, if they do not, they have a very ill taste ; 
Cor I never beheld any thing more amiable : only 



GRAY'S LETTERS 77 

figure to yourself a vast semicircular basin, full of 
fine blue sea, and vessels of all sorts and sizes, some 
sailing out, some coming in, and others at anchor ; 
and ali»around it palaces and churches peeping over 
one another's heads, gardens, and marble terraces 
full of orange and cypress trees, fouiirtains, and trel- 
lis-works covered with vines, which altogether com- 
pose the grandest of theatres. — This is the first coup 
d'oeil, and is ah«ost all I am yet able to give you an 
account of, for we arrived late last night. To-day 
was, luckily, a great festival, and in the morning we 
resorted to the church of the Madonna delle Vigne, 
to put up our little orisons ; (I believe I forgot to tell 
you that we have been sometime converts to the holy 
catholic church ;) we found our lady richly drest out, 
with a crown of diamonds on her own head, another 
upon the child's, and a constellation of wax lights 
burning before them : shortly after came the doge, in 
his robes of crimson damask, and a cap of the same, 
followed by the senate in black. Upon his approach, 
began a fine concert of music, and among the rest 
two eunuchs' voices, that were a perfect feast to ears 
that had heard nothing but French operas for a year. 
We listened to this, and breathed nothing but incense 
for two hours. The doge is a very tall, lean, state- 
ly, old figure, called Constantino Baibi ; and the se- 
nate seem to have been made upon the same model. — 
They said their prayers, and heard an absurd white 
friar preach, with equal devotion. After this we 
went to the Annonciata, a church built by the family 
Lomeilinij and belonging to it; which is, indeed, a 

G 2 



'78 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

most stately structure ! the inside wholly marble, ot* 
various kinds, except where gold and painting take 
its place — From hence to the palazzo Doria. I 
should make you sick of marble, if I told you how it 
was lavished here upon the porticoes, the ballus- 
trades, and terraces, the lowest of which extends 
quite lo the sea. The inside is by nio means answer- 
able to the outward' magnificence; the furniture 
seems to be as old as the founder of the family* 
Their great embossed silver tables tell you, in bas- 
relief, his victories at sea ; how he entertained the 
emperor Charles, and how he refused the sovereignty 
of the commonwealth when it was offered him ; the 
rest is old-fashioned velvet chairs, and Gothic tapes- 
try. The rest of the day has been spent, much to 
our hearts' content, in cursing French music and 
arrhitecture, and in singing the praises of Italy. 
We find this place so very fine, that we are in fear 
of finding nothing finer. — We are fallen in love with 
the Mediterranean sea, and hold your lakes and your 
rivers in vast contempt. This is 

" The happy country where huge lemons grow," 

as Waller says ; and I am sorry to think of leaving 
it in a week for Parma, although it be 

The happy country where huge cheeses grow. 

* The famous Andrea JDoria. 



CRAY'S LETTERS. 79 

XXV. 

TO HIS MOTHER. 

Bologna, Dec. 9, N. S. 1739. 
Our journey hither has taken up much less time 
than I expected. We left Genoa (a charming place 
and one that deserved a longer stay) the week before 
last ; crossed the mountains, and lay that night at 
Tortona, the next at St. Giovanni, and the morning 
after after came to Piacenza. That city, (though the 
capital of a duchy) made so frippery an appear- 
ance, that instead of spending some days there, as 
had been intended, we only dined, and went on to 
Parma ; stayed there all the following day, which 
was passed in visiting the famous works of Corregio 
in the Dome, and other churches. — The fine gallery 
of pictures, that once belonged to the dukes of Par- 
ma, is no more here ; the king of Naples has carx'i- 
ed it all thither, and the city had not merit enough 
to detain us any longer, so we proceeded through 
Reggio to Modena ; this, though the residence of its 
duke, is an ill-built melancholy place, all of brick, 
as are most of the towns in this part of Lombardy : 
he himself lives in a private manner, with very lit- 
tle appearance of a court about him ; he has one of 
the noblest collections of paintings in the world, 
which entertained us extremely well the rest of that 
day and part of the next : and in the afternoon we 
came to Bologna : Sxy now you may wish ns joy of 
being in the dominions of his Holiness. This is a 



so GRAY'S LETTERS. 

populous city, and of great extent: all the streets 
have porticoes on both *sides, such as surround a 
})art of Covent-Garden, a great relief in summer-time 
in such a climate; and from one of the principal gates 
to a church of the Virgin, (where is a wonder-work 
ing- picture, at three miles distance) runs a corridor 
of the same sort, lately finished, and, indeed, a most 
extraordinary performance. The churches here are 
more remarkble for their paintings than architecture, 
being mostly old structures of brick ; but the palaces 
are numerous, and fine enough to supply us with 
somewhat worth seeing from morning till nig-ht. The 
country of Lombardy, hitherto, is one of the most 
beautiful imaginable ; the roads broad, and exactly 
straight, and on either hand vast plantations of trees, 
chiefly mulberries and olives, and not a tree without 
a vine twining about it and spreading- among its 
branches. This scene, indeed, which must be the 
most lovely in the world during the proper season, 
is at present all deformed by the winter, which here 
is rigorous enough for the time it lasts ; but one still 
sees the skeleton of a charming place, and reaps the 
benefit of its product ; for the fruits and provisions 
are admirable : in short, you find every thing that 
luxury can desire, in perfection. We have now been 
here a week, and shall stay some little time longer. 
We are at the foot of the Apennine mountains ; it 
will take up three days to cross them, and then we 
shall come to Florence, where we shall pass the 
Christmas. Till then we must remain in a state of 
ignorance as to what is doing in England; for our 



GRAY'S LETTERS 81 

letters are to meet us there : if I do not find four or 
five from yon alone, I shall wonder. 

XXVI. 

TO HIS MOTHER. 

Florence, Dec. 19 N. S. 1739. 
We spent twelve days at Bologna, chiefly (as most 
travellers do) in seeing sights ; for as we knew no 
mortal there, and as it is no easy matter to get ad- 
mission into any Italian house, without very particu- 
lar recommendations, we could see no company but 
in public places ; and there are none in that city but 
the churches. We saw, therefore, churches, palaces, 
and pictures from morning to night ; and the 15th 
of this month set out for Florence, and began to 
cross the Apennine mountains ; we travelled among 
and upon them all that day, and, as it was but in- 
different weather, were commonly in the middle of 
thick clouds, that utterly deprived us of a sight of their 
beauties : for this vast chain of hills has its beauties, 
and all the valleys are cultivated j even the mountains 
themselves are many of them so within a little of 
their very tops. They are not so horrid as the Alps, 
though pretty near as high ; and the whole road is 
admirably well kept, and paved throughout, which is 
a length of fourscore miles, and more. We left the 
pope's dominions, and lay that night in those of the 
grand duke of Fiorenzuqla, a paltry little town, at the 
foot of mount Giogo, which is the highest of them all 



82 GRAY'S LETTERS, 

Next morning we went up it ; the post house is upou 
its very top, and usually involved in clouds, or half- 
buried in the snow. Indeed there was none of 
the last at the time we were there, but it was still 
a dismal habitation. The descent is most excessive- 
ly steep, and the turnings very short and frequent j 
however we performed it without any danger, and in 
coming down could dimly discover Florence, and 
the beautiful plain about it, tinough the mists ; but 
enough to convince us, it must be one of the noblest 
prospects upon earth in sinnmer. That afternoon 
we got thither : and Mr. Mann,* the resident, had 
sent his servant to meet us at the gates, and conduct 
us to his house. He is the best and most obUging 
person in the world. The nexi night we were intro- 
duced at the prince of .Craon's assembly (he has the 
chief power here in the grand duke's absence.) — 
The princess, and he, were extremely civil to the 
name of Walpoie, so we were asked to stay supper? 
which is as much as to say, you may come and sup 
heie whenever you please ; for after the first invita- 
tion this is always understood. We have also been 
at the countess Suarez's, a favourite of the late duke^ 
and one that gives the first movement to every thing 
gay that is going forward here. The nevvs is every 
day expected from Vienna of the great duchess's de- 
liverv ; if it be a boy here will be all sorts of balls, 
masquerades, operas, and illuminations ; if not, we 
must wait for the carnival, when all those thinjf& 

* Afterwards Sir Horace MaBjj. 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 83 

come of course. In the mean time, it is impossible 
to want entertainment ; the famous gallery, alone, is 
an amusement for months : we commonly pass two 
or three hours every morning in it, and one has per- 
fect leisure to consider all its beauties. You know 
it contains many hundred antique statues, such as 
the whole world cannot match, besides the vast col- 
lection of paintings, medals, and precious stones, 
such as no other prince was ever master of ; in short, 
all that the rich and powerful house of Medicis has, 
in so many years got together. And besides this city 
abounds with so many palaces and churches, that 
you can hardly place yourself any where without 
having some fine one in view, or at least some statue 
or fountain, magnificently adorned ; these undoubt- 
edly are far more numerous than Genoa can pretend 
to ; yet, in its general appearance, I cannot think 
that Florence equals it in beauty. Mr. Walpole is 
iust come from being presented to the electress pala- 
tine dowager ; she is a sister of the late great duke's ; 
a stately old lady, that never goes out but to church, 
and then she has guards, and eight horses to her 
coach. She received him with much ceremony, stand- 
ing under a huge black canopy, and, after a few mi- 
nutes' talking, she assured him of her good will, and 
dismissed him ; she never sees any body but thus in 
form ; and so she passes her life,* poor woman ! * * ^ 

* Persons of very high rank, and withal very good sense, wUl 
only feel the pathos of this exclamation. 



84 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

XXVIl. 

TO MR. WEST. 

Florence, Jan. 15, 1740. 
I THINK I have not yet told you how we left that 
charming place Genoa ; how we crossed a mountain 
all of green marble, called Buchetto ; how we came 
to Tortona, and waded through the mud to come to 
Castel St. Giovanni, and there eat mustard and sugar 
with a dish of crows' gizzards : secondly how we 
passed the famous plains 

dua Treble glaucas sallces Intersecat undft, 

Ai'vaque Romanis nobilitata mails. 
Visus adhuc amnis veteri de clade ruhere, 

Et suspirantes ducere mcestus aquas ; 
Maurorumque ala, et nigrae Increbrescere turmce, 

Et pulsa Ausonidum rlpa sonare fuga. 

Nor, thirdly, how we passed through Piacenza, Par- 
ma, Modena, entered the territories of the pope , 
stayed twelve days at Bologna ; crossed the Apen- 
nines, and afterwards arrived at Florence, None of 
these things have I told you, nor do I intend to tell 
you, till you ask me some questions concerning them. 
No, not even of Florence itself, except that it is as fine 
as possible, and has every thing in it thdt can bless 
the eyes But, before Tenter into particulars, you 
must make your peace both with me and the Venus 
de Medicis; who, let me tell you, is highly and just- 
ly offended at you for not inquiring, long before thiSy 
concerning her symmetry and proportions. ***** 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 86 

XXVIII. 

TO HIS MOTHER. 

Florence, March 19, 1740 
The pope* is at last dead, and we are to set out for 
Rome on Monday next. The conclave is still sitting 
there, and likely to continue so some time longer, 
as the two French cardinals are but just arrived, 
and the German ones are still expected. It agrees 
niig-hly ill with those that remain enclosed : Ottoboni 
is already dead of an apoplexy ; Altieri and several 
others are said to be dyingj or very bad : yet it is not 
expected to break up tillfafter Easter. We shall lie 
at Sienna the first night, spend a day there, and in 
two more get to Rome. One begins to see in this 
country the first promises of an Italian spring, clear • 
unclouded skies, and warm suns, such as are not of- 
ten felt in England ; yet, for your sake, I hope at 
present you have your proportion of them, and that 
all your frosts, and snows, and short-breaths are, by 
this time, utterly vanished. I have noihing new or 
particular to inform you of; and, if you see things 
at home go on much in their old course, you must 
not imagine tliem more various abroad. The diver- 
sions of a Florentine Lent are composed of a ser- 
mon in the morning, full of hell and the devil; a 
dinner at noon, full of fish and meager diet; and? 

'^ Clement tbe Twelfth. 
H 



86 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

in the evening, what is called a conversazione, a soit 
of assembly at the principal people's houses, full of 
I cannot tell what : besides this, there is twice a week 
a very grand concert,**** 

XXIX. 

TO HIS MOTHER. 

Rome, April 2, N. S. 174#. 
This is the third day since we came to Rome, but 
the first hour I have had to write to you in. The 
journey from Florence cost us four days, one of 
which was spent at Sienna, an agreeable, clean, old 
City, of no great magnificence or extent ; but in a 
fine situation, and good air. What it has most con- 
siderable is its cathedral, a huge pile of marble, 
black and white laid alternately, and laboured with 
a GotWc niceness and delicacy in the old-fashioned 
way. Within too are some paintings and sculpture 
of considerable hands. The sight of this, and some 
collections that were showed us in private houses, 
were a suflScient employment for the little time we 
were to pass there ; and the next morning we set 
forward on our journey through a country very 
oddly composed ; for some miles you have a conti- 
nual scene of little mountains cultivated from top to 
bottom with rows of olive trees, or else elms, each 
of which has its vine twining about it, and mixing 
with the branches ; a»d corn sown between all the 
ranks. This, diversified with numerous small houses 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 8? 

and convents, makes the most agreeeble prospect in 
the world : but, all o( a sudden, it alters to black 
barren hills, as far as the eye can reach, that seem 
nevet to ^SLve been capable of culture, and are as 
ugly as useless. Such is the country for some time 
before one comes to Mount Radicofani, a terrible 
black hill, on the top of which we were to lodge that 
night. It is very high, and difficult of ascent ; and 
at the foot of it we were much embarrassed bj' thfe 
fall of one of the poor horses that drew us. This 
accident obliged another chaise, which was coming 
down, to stop also ; and out of it peeped a figure in 
a red cloak, with a handkerchief tied round its head, 
which, by its voice and mien, seemed a fat old wo- 
man ; but upon its getting out, appeared *o be Se- 
nesino, who was returning from Naples to Sienna, 
the place of his birth and residence. On the highest 
part of the mountain is an old fortress, and near it 
a house built by one of the grand dukes for a hunt- 
ing-seat, but now converted into an inn : it is the 
shell of a large fabric, but such an inside, such cham- 
bers, and accommodations, that your cellar is a pa- 
lace ill comparison ; and your cat sups and lies much 
better than we did ; for, it being a saint's eve, there 
was nothing but eggs. We devoured our me.iger 
fare ; and, after stopping up the windows with the 
quilts, were obliged to lie upon the straw beds in our 
clothes. Such are the conveniences in a road, that 
is, as it were, the great thoroughfare of all the 
world. Just on the other side of" this mountain, at 
Ponte-Ceptino, one enters the patrimony of the 



88 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

church ; a most delicious country, but thinly inha- 
bited. That night brought us to Viterbo, a city of 
a more lively appearance than any we had lately 
met with ; the houses have glass windows, which is 
not very usual here ; and most of the streets are ter- 
minated by a handsome fountain. Here we had the 
pleasure of breaking our fast on the leg of an old 
hare and some broiled crows. Next morning, in 
descending Mount Viterbo, we first discovered 
(though at near thirty miles distance) the cupola of 
St, Peter's, and a little alter began to enter on aa 
old Roman pavement, with now and then a ruined 
tower, or a sepulchre on each hand. We now had a 
clear view of the city, though not to the best advan- 
tage, as coming along a plain quite upon a level with 
it ; however, it appeared very vast, and surrounded 
with magnificent villas and gardensr. We soon after • 
crossed the Tiber, a river that ancient Rome i ' ' 
more considerable than any merit of its own c« 
have done : however, it is not contemptibly sm^dy 
but a good handsome stream ; very deep, yet so.me- 
what of a muddy complexion. The first entrance of 
Rome is prodigiously Sitriking. It is by a noble 
gate, designed by Michael .\ngelo, and adorned with 
Statues ; this brings you mto a large square, in the 
midst of which is a vast obelisk of granite, and in 
front you have at one view two churches of a hand- 
some architecture, and so much alike, that they are 
called the Twins ; with three streets, the middlemost 
of which is one of the longest in Rome. As high 
as my expectation was raised, I confess, the magni- 



liRAY'S LETTERS. 89 

iicence of thistcity infinitely surpasses it. You can- 
not pass along a street, but you have views of some 
palace, or church, or square, or fountain, the most 
picturesque and noble one can imagine. We have 
not yet set about considering its beauties, ancient 
and modern, with attention ; but have already taken 
a slight transient view of some of the most remark- 
able. St. Peter's I saw the day after we arrived, 
and was struck dumb with wonder. I there saw the 
cardinal D'A.uvergne, one of the French ones, who, 
upon coming off his journey, immediately repaired 
hither to offer up his vows at the high altar, and 
went directly into the conclave ; the doors of which 
we saw opened to him, and all the other immured 
cardinals came thither to receive him. Upon his en- 
trance they were closed again directly. It is sup- 
posef* they will not come to an agreement about a 
pc vill after Easter, though the confinement is very 
dh reeable. I have hardly philosophy enough to 
see *tlie infinity of fine things, that are here daily in 
the power of any body that has money, without re- 
gretting the want of it ; but custom has the power 
of making things easy to one. I have not yet seen 
his majesty of Great Britain, &c. though I have the 
two boys in the gardens of the Villa Borgese, where 
they go a shoofing almost every day ; it was at a 
distance, indeed, for we did not choose to meet 
them, as j-ou may imagine. This letter (like all 
those the English send, or receive) will pass through 
the hands of that fannly, before it comes, to those it 
was intended for. They do it more honour than it 
H 2 



90 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

deserves ; and all they will learn from thence will 
be, that I desire you to give my duty to my father, 
and wherever else it is due, and that I am, &c. 

XXX. 

TO HIS MOTHER. 

Rome, April l5, 1740. Good-Friday. 
To-day T am just come from paying my adoration 
at St. Peter's to three extraordinary relics, which are 
exposed to public view only on these two days in the 
whole year, at which time all the confraternities in 
the city come in procession to see them. It was 
something extremely novel to see that vast church, 
and the most magnificent in the world, undoubtedly, 
illuminated (for it was night) by thousands of little 
crystal lamps, disposed in the figure of a huge cross 
at the high altar, and seeming to hang alone in the 
air. All the light proceeded from this, and had the 
most singular effect imaginable as one entered the 
great door. Soon after came one after another, I 
believe, thirty processions, all dressed in linen frocks, 
and girt with a cord, their heads covered with a 
cowl all over, only two holes to see through left. 
Some of them were all black, others red, others 
white, others party-coloured; these were continually 
coming and going with their tapers and crucifixes 
before them ; and to each company, as they arrived 
and knelt before the great altar, were shown from a 
balcony, at a great height, the three wonders, which 
are, you must know, the head of the spear that 



GRAY'S LETTERS. »1 

wounded Christ ; St Veronica's handkerchief, with 
the miraculous impression of his face upon it : and 
a piece of the true cross, on the sight of which the 
peopW thurap their breasts, and kiss the pavement 
with vast devotion. The tragical part of the cere- 
mony is half a dozen wretched creatures, who, with 
their faces covered, but naked to the waist, are in a 
side-chapel disciplining themselves with scourges 
full :f iron prickles ; but really in earnest, as our 
eyes can testify, which saw their backs and arms so 
raw, wc should have taken it for a red satin doublet 
torn, and showing the skin through, had we not been 
convinced of the contrary by the blood which was 
plentifully sprinkled about them. It is late j I give 
you joy of Porto-Beilo, and many other things, 
which I hope are all true. * * ^ 

XXXI. 

TO MR. WEST. 

• Tivoli, May 20, 1740. 

This day being in the palace of his highness the 
duke of Modena. he laid his most serene commands 
upon me to write to Mr. West, and said he thought 
it for his glory, that I should draw up an inventory 
of all his most serene possessions for the said West's 
perusal. Imprimis, a house, being in circumfer- 
ence a quarter of a mile, two feet and an inch ; the 
said house containing the following particulars, to 
wit, a great room. Item, another great room ; item^ 



m. GRAY'S LETTERS. 

a bigger room ; item, another room ; iteui^ a vast 
room ; item, a sixth of the same ; a seventh ditto ; 
an eighth as before ', a ninth as abovesaid ; a tenth 
(see No. 1. ;) item, ten more such, besides twenty 
besides, which, not to be too particular, we shall 
pass over. The said rooms contain nine chairs, two 
tables, five stools, and a cricket. From whence we 
shall proceed to the garden, containing two millions 
of superfine laurel hedges, a clump of cypress trees, 
and half the river Teverone, that pisses into two 
thousand several chamberpots. Finis. — Dame Na- 
tuie desired me to put in a list of her little goods 
and chattels, and, as they were small, to be very mi- 
nute about them. She has built here three or four 
little mountains, and laid them out in an irregular 
semicircle ; from certain others behind, at a greater 
distance, she has drawn a canal, into which she has 
put a little river of hers, called A.nio ; she has cut a 
huge cleft between the two innermost of her four 
hills, and there she has left it to its own disposal ; 
which she has no sooner done, but, like a heedless 
chit, it tumbles headlong down a declivity fifty i'tet 
perpendicular, breaks itself all to shatters, and is 
converted into a shower of rain, where the sun forms 
many a bow. red, green, blue, and yellow. To get 
out of our metaphors without any further trouble, 
it is the most noble sight iri the world. The weight 
of that quantity of waters, and the force they fall 
with, have worn the rocks they throw themselves 
among into a thousand irregular crags, and to a vast 
depth. In this channel it goes boiling along witha 
mighty noise till it comes to another steep, where 



GRAB'S LETTERS. 93 

you see it a second time come roaring down (but 
first you must walli two miles farther) a greater 
height than before, but not with that quantity of 
waters* for by this time it has divided itself, being 
crossed and opposed by the rocks, into four several 
streams, each of which, in emulation of the great 
one, will tumble down too ; and it does tumble down, 
but not from an equally elevated place ; so that you 
have at one view all these cascades intermixed with 
groves of olive and little woods, the mountains ris- 
ing behind them, and on the top of one (that which 
forms the extremity of one of the half-circle's horns) 
is seated the town itself- At the very extremity of 
that extremity, on the brink of the precipice, stands 
the Sibyl's temple, the remains of a little rotunda, 
surrounded with its portico, above half of whose 
beautiful Corinthian pillars are still standing and en- 
tire ; all this on one hand. On the other, the open 
campagna of Rome, here and there a little castle on 
a hillock, and the city itself on the very brink of the 
horizon, indistinctly seen (being eighteen miles oflf) 
except the dome of St. Peter's ; which, if you look 
out of your window, wherever you are, I suppose, 
you can see, I did not tell you that a little below the 
first fall, on the side of the rock, and hanging over 
that torrent, are little ruins which they show you for 
Horace's house, a curious situation to observe the 

" Praeceps Anio et Tiburai lu cus, et uda 
Mobilijjus pomaria rivis." 

Majcenas did not care for such a noise, it seems, and 



m GRAY'S LETTERS. 

built him a house (which they also carry one to see) 
so situated that it sees nijthing at all of the matter^ 
and for any thing he knew there might be no such 
river in the world. Horace had another house on 
the other side of the Teverone, opposite to Maece- 
nas's ; and they told us there was a bridge of com-- 
munication, by which " audava il detto Signor per 
trastuUarsi coll istesso Orazio." In coming hither 
we crossed the Aquae Albulse, a vile little brook that 
stinks Hke a fury, and they <;ay it has stunk sothes^ 
thousand years. I forgot the Piscina of Quintilius 
Varus, where he used to keep certain httle fishes. 
This is very enrire, and there is a piece of the aque- 
duct that supplied it loo ; in the garden below is old 
Rome, built in little, just as it was, ihey say.. There 
are seven temples in it, and no houses at all : they 
say there were none. 

May 2t. 
IVe have had the pleasure of going twelve miles 
out of our way to Palestiina. It has rained all day 
as if heaven and us were coming together. See my 
honesty, I do not mention a syllable of the temple of 
Fortune, because I realty did not see it ; which, I 
think, is pretty well for an old traveller. So we re- 
turned along the Via Praenestina, saw the Lacus Ga* 
binus and Regillus, where, you know, Castor and 
Pollux appeared upon a certain occasion. And many 
a good old tomb we left on each hand, and many an 
aqueduct, 

Dumb are whose fountains, and their channels drj-. 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 95 

There are, indeed, two whole modern ones, works 
of popes, that run about thirty miles a-piece in 
lengthy one of them conveys still the famous Aqua 
Virgo to Rome, and adds vast beauty to the prospect. 
So we came to Rome again, where waited for us a 
spleadidissimo regalo of letters : in one of which 
came You, with your huge characters and wide in- 
tervals, staring. I would have you to know, I ex- 
pect you should take a handsome crow-quill when 
you write to me, and not leave room for a pin's point 
in four sides of a sheet royal. Do you but find mat- 
ter, I will find spectacles. 

I have more time than I thought, and I will em- 
ploy it in telling you about a ball that we were at 
the other evening. Figure to yourself a Roman villa; 
all its little apartments thrown open, and lighted up 
to the best advantage. At the upper end of the 
gallery, a fine concert, in which La Diamantina, a 
famous virtuosa, played on the violin divinely, and 
sung angelically ; Giovanuino and Pasqualini (great 
names in musical story) also performed miraculous^ 
ly. On each side were ranged all the secular grand 
iponde of Rome, the ambassadors, princesses, and 
all that. Among the rest 11 Serenissimo Pretendente 
(as th.o Mantpva gazette calls him) displayed his rue- 
ful length of person, with his two young ones, and 
all his ministry around him. " Foi nacque un gra- 
zioso bailo," where the world da«ced, and I sat in 
a corner regaling myself with iced fruits, and othey 
pleasant ripfrescatives. 



S6 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

XXXII. 

TO MR. WEST. 

Rome, May, 174ft. 
I AM to-day just retui-ned from Alba, a good deal 
fatigued; for you know the Appian is somewhat tire- 
some.* We dined at Pompey's ; he indeed was gone 
for a few days to his Tqsculan, but, by the care of 
his villicus, we made an admirable meal We had 
the dugs of a pregnant sow, a peacock, a dish of 
thrushes, a noble scams, just fresh from the Tyr- 
rhene, and some conchylia of the lake with garum 
sauce : for my part I never eat better at Lucullas's 
table. We drank half a dozen cyathi a-piece of an- 
cient Alban to Pholoe's health ; and, after bathing, 
and playing an hour at ball, we mounted our esse- 
dum again, and proceeded up the mount to the tem- 
ple. The priests there entertained us with an ac- 
count of a wonderful shower of birds' eggs, that 
had fallen two days before, which had no sooner 
touched the ground, but they were converted into 
gudgeons ; as also that the night past a dreadful 

* However whimsical this humour may appear to some rea- 
ders, I chose to Insert it, as it gives me an opportunity of re- 
marking- that Ml'. Gray was exfrcmely skilled in tl)e customs of 
the ancient Romans j and has catalog!>ed. in his common-place 
book, their various eatables.. w:iies, perfiimes, clothes, medi- 
cines, &,c. with great precision, refe^rng- nn<Je. every article to 
peissages in the poets and historians where their names are 
mentioned. 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 97 

voice bad been heard out of the adytum, which 
spoke Greek during a full half hour, but nobod}' un- 
derstood it. But quitting my Romanities, to your 
great joy and mine, let me tell you, in plain English, 
that we come from Albano. The present town lies 
within the enclosure of Pompey's villa in ruins. The 
Appian way runs through it, by the side of which, a 
little farther, is a large old tomb, with five pyramids 
upon it, which the learned suppose to be the burj'^- 
ing-place of the family, because they do not know 
whose it can be else. But the vulgar assure you it is 
the sepulchre of the Curiatii, and by that name 
(such is their power) it goes. One drives to Castel 
Gondolfo, a house of the pope's, situated on the top 
of one of the Collinette, that forms a brim to the 
basin, commonly called the Alban lake. It is seven 
miles round ; and directly opposite to you, on the 
other side, rises the Mons Albanus, much taller than 
the rest, along whose side are still discoverable (not 
to common eyes) certain little ruins of the old Alba 
Longa. They had need be very little, as having 
been nothing but ruins ever since the daj's of Tnllus 
Hostilius. On its top is a house of the constable 
Colonna's, where stood the temple of JiJipiter La- 
tialis. At the foot of the hill Gondolfo, are the fa- 
mous outlets of the lake, built with hewn stone, a 
mile and a half under ground. Livy, you know^ 
amply informs us of the foolish occasion of this ex- 
pense, and gives me this opportunity of displaying 
all my erudition, that I may appear considerable in 
your eyes. This is the prospect from one window of 
I 



il>8 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

the palace. From another you have the whole cana* 
pagna, the city, Antium, and the Tyrrhene sea 
(twelve miles distant) so distinguishable, that you 
may see the vessels sailing upon it. All this is 
charming. Mr. Walpole says, our memory sees more 
than our eyes in this country, which is extremely 
true ; since, for realities, Windsor, or Richmond 
Hill, is infinitely preferable to Albano or Frescati, 
I am now at home, and going to the window to tell 
you it is the most beautiful of Italian nights, which, 
in truth, are but just begun, fso backward has the 
spring been here, and every where else, they say.) 
There is a moon ! there are stars for you 1 Do not 
you hear the fountain .'' Do not you smell the orange 
flowers .-* That building yonder is the convent of St. 
Isidore ; and that eminence, with the cypress trees 
and pines upon it, the top of M. Quirinal. — This is 
all true, and yet my prospect is not two hundred 
yards in length. We send you some Roman inscrip-? 
tions to entertain you. The first two are modern, 
transcribed from the Vatican library by Mr. Wal- 
pole. 

Pontifices olim quem fundavfere priores, 
ProecipuEl Sixtus peifjcitarte tholum ;* 

Et Sixti taPturase a^loria lollitin altum, 
Quantum se Sixti nobile tollitopus: 

Magnus lionos magui fundaiwina ponere templij 
Sed finem cceptis ponere major honos. 

* SjxtuS V. buiU the dome of St. Peters, 



GRAY'S letters: 99 

Saxa agit Amphion, Thebana ut moenia condal : 
Sixtus etimmensu; pondera molisagit.* 

Saxatrahunt ambo longe diversa: sed arte 
Usee trahit Amphion ; Sixtus et arte trahit. 

At tantuiTiexsuperat Uircaeum Araphiona Sixtus, 
Quantum hie exsuperat caetem saxa lapis. 

Mine is ancient, and I think not less curious. It 
is exactly transcribed from a sepulchral marble at 
the villa Giustiniani. 1 put stops to it, when I un- 
derstand it. ' 

DIs IVIanibus 
Claudiae, Pistes 
Piimus Conjugi 
Optumae, Sanctae, 
Et Piue, Beneraeritate. 

Non sequos, Parcae, statuistis stamina vitae. 
Tarn bene composites potuistis sede tenere. 
Amissa est conjux. cur ego et ipse moror ? 
Si • bella • esse • mi • iste • mea • vivere • debuit • 
Tristiacontigeiuntqui amissa conjuge vivo. 
Nil est tarn miserura, quam tutam perdere vitam. 
Nee vita enasci dura peregistis crudelia pensa, sorores, 
Ruptaque dr-ficiunt in primo munere fasi. 
O nimis injustse ter denos dare munus in annos, 
jDeceptus • grautus • fatura • sic • pressit • egestas ♦ 
Dum vitam tulero, Primus Pistes lugea conjugium^ 

* He raised the obelisk in the great area. 



100 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

XXXIIL 

TO HIS MOTHER. 

Naples, June 17, 1740. 
Our journey hither was through the most beautiful 
part of the finest country in the world ; and every 
spot of it, on some account or other, famous for 
these three thousand years past.* The season has 
hitherto been just as warm as one would wish it ; no 
unwholesome airs, or violent heats, yet heard of: 
The people call it a backward year, and are in pain 
about their corn, wine, and oil but we, who are 
neither corn, wine, nor oil, find it very agreeab 
Our road was through Veiletri, Cisterna, Terracina, 
Capua, and Aversa, and so to Naples. The minute 
one leaves his holiness's dominions, the face of things 
begins to change from wide uncultivated plains 
to olive groves and well-tilled fields of corn, in- 
termixed with ranks of elms, every one of which 
has its vine twining about it, and hanging in festoons 
between the rows from one tree to another. The 
great old fig-trees, the oranges in full bloom, and 
myrtles in every hedge, make one of the delightful- 
lest scenes you can conceive ; besides that, the roads 
are wide, well-kept, and full of passengers, a sight 

* Mr. Gray wrote a minute description of every thing he saw 
in this tour from Rome to Naples; as also of the environs of 
Rome, Florence, &c. But as these papers axe apparently only 
memorandums for his own use, I do not think it necessary to 
print them, although they abound with many uncommon re- 
marks, and pertinent classical quotations. 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 101 

1 have not beheld this long time. My wonder still 
increased upon entering the city, which, I think; 
for number of people, outdoes both Paris and Lon- 
don. The streets are one continued market, and 
throngeHf with populace so much that a coach can 
hardly pass. The common sort are a jolly lively kind 
of animals, more industrious than Italians usually 
are ; they work till evening ; then take their lute or 
guitar (for they all play) and walk about the city, or 
upon the sea-shore with it, to enjoy the fresco. One 
sees their little brown children jumping about stark- 
naked, and the bigger ones dancing with castanets, 
while others play on the cymbal to them. Your maps 
lill show you the situation of Naples ; it is on the 
.nost lovely bay in the world, and one of the calmest 
seas : it has many other beauties besides those of 
nature. We have spent two days in visiting the re- 
markable places in the country round it, such as the 
bay of Baiae, and its remains of antiquity ; the lake 
Avernus, and the Solfatara, Charon's grotto, &.c. 
We have been in the Sibyl's cave and many other 
strange holes under-ground (I only name them, be- 
cause you may consult Sandy's travels ;) but the 
strangest hole I ever was in, has been to-day, at a 
place called Fortici, where his Sicilian Majesty has a 
country-seat. About a year ago, as they were dtg- 
ing, they discovered some parts of ancient buildings 
above thirty feet deep in (he ground : curiosity led 
them on, and they have been digging ever since; the 
passage they have made, with all its turnings and 
windings, is now more than a mile long. As you 
walk, you see parts of an am{)hitheatre, many houses 
I 2 



102 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

adorned with marble columns, and incrusted witk 
the same ; the front of a temple, several arched vaults 
of rooms painted in fresco. Some pieces of painting 
have been taken out from hence, finer than any thing 
of the kind before discovered, and with these the king 
has adorned his palace ; also a number of statues, 
medals, and gems ; and more are dug out every day. 
This is known to be a Roman town,* that in the 
emperor Titus's time was overwhelmed by a furious 
eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which is hard by. — The 
wood and beams remain so perfect that you may see 
the grain ; but burnt to a coal, and dropping into 
dust upon the least touch. We were to-day at the 
foot of that moujitain, which at present only smokes a 
little, where we saw the materials that fed the stream 
of fire, which about four years since ran down its 
side. We have but a few days longer to stay here ; 
too little in conscience for such a place. * •'" • 

XXXIV. 

TO HIS FATHER. 

Florence, July 16, 1749. 
At my return to this city, the day before yesterday, 
I had the pleasure of finding yours dated June the 
9th. The period of our voyages, at least towards the 
South, is come, as you wish. W^e have been at Na- 
ples, spent nine or ten days there, and returned to 

* It should seem, by the omission of its name, that it was not 
then discovered to be Herculaneum. 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 103 

Rome, where finding no likelihood of a pope yet 
these three months, and quite wearied with the for- 
mal assemblies, and little society of that g-reat city, 
Mr. W^ole determined to return hither to spend 
the summer, where he iraag-ines he shall pass his 
time more agreeably than in the tedious expectation 
of what, when it happens, will only be a great show. 
For my own part, I give up the thoughts of all that 
with but little regret ; but the city itself I do not 
part with so easily, which alone has amusements for 
whole years. However, I have passed through all 
that most people do, both ancient and modern ; what 
that is you may see, better than I can tell you, in a 
thousand books. The conclave we left in greater 
uncertainty than ever \ the more than ordinary li- 
berty they enjoy there, and the unusual coolness of 
the season, makes the confinement less disagreeable 
to them than common, and, consequently, maintains 
them in their irresolution. There have been very 
high words, one or two (it is said) have come even 
to blows ; two more are dead within this last months 
Cenci and Portia ; the latter died distracted ; and 
we left another (Altieri) at the extremity : yet nobody 
dreams of an election till the latter end of Septem- 
ber. All this gives great scandal to all good catho- 
lics, and every body talks very freely on the subject. 
The Pretender (whom you desire an account of) I 
have had frequent opportunities of seeing at church, 
at the coi'so, and other places ; but more particular 
ly, and that for a whole night, at a great ball given 
by count Patrizii to the prince and princess Craow, 



104 &RAY'S LETTERS. 

(who were come to Rome at that time, that he might 
receive from the hands of the emperor's ministers 
there the order of the golden fleece) at which he and 
his two sons were present. They are good fine boys, 
especially the younger, who has the more spirit of 
the two, and both danced incessantly all night long. 
For him, he is a thin ill-made man, extremely tall 
and awkward, of a most unpromising countenance, a 
good deal resembling king James the second, and has 
extremely the air and look of an idiot, particularly 
when he laughs or prays. The first he does not often, 
the latter continually. He lives private enough with 
his little court about him, consisting of lord Dunbar, 
who manages every tiling, and two or three of the 
Preston Scotch lords, who would be very glad to i^ake 
their peace at home. 

We happened to be at Naples on Corpus Christi 
day, the greatest feast in the year, so had an oppor- 
tunity of seeing their Sicilian majesties to advantage. 
The king walked in the grand procession, and the 
queen (being big with child) sat in a balcony. He 
followed the host to the church of St. Clara, where 
high mass was celebrated to a glorious concert of 
music. They are as ugly a little pair as one can 
see: she a pale girl, marked with the small-pox; 
and he a brown boy with a thin face, a huge nose, 
and as ungain as possible. 

We are settled here with Mr. Mann, in a charm- 
ing apartment 5 the river Arno runs under our win- 
dows, which we can fish out of The sky is so se- 
rene, and the air so temperate, that one continues 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 165 

m the open air all night long iu a slight night gown, 
without any danger ; and the marble bridge is the 
resort of every body, where they hear music, eat 
iced f«ii»its, and sup by moonlight ; though as yet 
(the season being extremely bacliward every where) 
these amusements are not begun. You see we are 
now coming northward again, though in no great 
haste ', the Venetian and Milanese territories, and 
either Germany or tlie south of France (according 
to the turn the war may take,) are all that remain 
for us, that we have not yet seen ; as to Loretto, and 
that part of Italy, we have given over all thoughts 
of it. 

XXXV. 

FROM MR. WEST. 

Bond-street, June 5, 1740. 
I LIVED at the Temple till I was sick of it : 1 have 
just left it, and find myself as much a lawyer as I 
was when 1 was in it. It is certain, at least, I may 
study the law here as well as I could there, iVly be- 
ing in chambers did not signify to me a pinch of 
snuff. They tell me my father was a lawyer,- and, 
as you know, eminent in the profession ; and such 
a circumstance must be of advantage to me. My 
uncle too makes some figure in Westminster-hall ; 
and there's another advantage : then my grand- 
father's name would get me many friends. Is it not 
strange that a young fellow, that might enter the 
world with so many advantages, will not know his 



106 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

own interest ? &,c. &c. What shall I say in answer 
to all this? For money, I neither dote upon it nor 
despise it, it is a necessary stuff enough. For am- 
bition, I do not want that neither ; but it is not to 
sit upon a bench. In short, is it not a disagreeable 
thing to force one's inclination, especially when 
one's young ? not to mention that one ought to have 
the strength of a Hercules to go through our com- 
mon law 5 which, I am afraid, I have not. Well ! 
but theuj say they, if one profession does not suit 
you, you may choose another more to your inclina- 
tion. Now I protest I do not yet know my own in- 
clination, and I believe, if that was to be my direc- 
tion, I should never fix at all. There is no going by 
a weather-cock. I could say much more upon this 
subject ; but there is no talking tete-a-t^te cross the 
the Alps. Oh, the folly of young men, that nevef 
know their own interest I they never grow wise till 
they are ruined ! and then nobody pities them, nor 
belps them. Dear Gray 1 consider me in the condi- 
tion of one that has lived these two years without 
dny fJerson that he can speak freely to. I know it 
is ve^ry seldom that people trouble themselves with 
the sentiments of those they converse with ; so they 
fcan chiat about trifles, they never care whether your 
lieart aches or no. Are you onie of these .'' I think 
hot. But what right havfe I to ask you this question ? 
Have we known one another enough, that I should 
expect or demand sincerity from you .'' Yes, Gray^ 
1 hope we have ; and I have not quite such a mean 
fipihion of myself, as to think I do not deserve it. 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 107 

But, signer, is it not time for me to ask something 
about your future intentions abroad ? Where do you 
propose going next ? an in Apuliain ? nam illo si ad° 
venerivtanquam Ulysses, cognosces tuorum nemi^ 
nem. Vale. So Cicero prophesies in the end of one 
of his ietters^ — and there I end. 

YourS) &c. 

XXXVI. 

TO MR. WEST. 

Florence, July 16, |740. , 
You do yourself .and me justice, in imagining that 
you merit, and that I am capable of sincerity. I 
have not a thought, or even a weakness, I desire to 
conceal from you ; and consequently on my side de= 
serve to be treated w^ith the same openness of heart. 
My vanity perhaps might make me more reserved 
towards you, if you were one pf the heroic race, 
superior to all human failings ; but as mutual wunt$ 
are the ties of general society, so are mutual weak- 
nesses of private friendships, supposing them mixed 
with some proportion of good qualities ; for where 
one may not sometimes blanie, one does not mucl) 
cat e ever to praise. All this has the air of an intro- 
duction designed to soften a very harsh reproof that 
;s to follow ; but it is no such matter : I only meant 
to ask, why did you change your lodging.'' Was 
the -air bad, or the situation melancholy ? If so, 
you are quite in the right. Only , is it not putting 
yourself a little out of the way of a people, 



108 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

whom it seems necessary to keep up some sort of in- 
tercourse and conversation, though but little for your 
pleasure or entertainment (yet there are, I believe, 
such among them as might give you both,) at least 
for your information in that study, which, when I 
left you, you thought of applying to ? for that there 
is a certain study necessary to be followed, if we 
mean to be of any use in the world, I take for grant- 
ed ; disagreeable enough (as most necessities are,) 
but, I am afraid, unavoidable. Into how many 
branches these studies are divided in England, every 
body knows ; and between that which you and I 
had pitched upon, and the other two, it was impos- 
sible to balance long. Examples show one that it is 
not absolutely necessary to be a blockhead to suc- 
ceed in this profession. The labour is long, and the 
elements dry and unentertaioing ; nor was ever any 
body (especially those tliat afterwards made a figure 
in it) amused, or even not disgusted in the begin- 
ning ; yet, upon a further acquaintance, there is 
surely matter for curiosity and reflection. It is 
strange if, among all that huge mass of words, there 
be not somewhat intermixed for thought. Laws 
have been the result of long deliberation, and that 
not of dull men, but the contrary ; and have so' close 
a connexion with history, nay, with philosophy it- 
self, that they must partake a little of what they 
are related to so nearly. Besides, tell me, have you 
ever made the attempt .' Was not you frighted 
merely with the distant prospect ? Had the Gothic 
character and bulkiness of those volumes (a tenth 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 109 

part of which perhaps it will be no further neces- 
sary to consult, than as one does a dictionary) no ill 
effect upon your eye ? Are you sure, if Coke had 
been printed by Elzevir, and bound in twenty neat 
pocket volumes, instead of one folio, you should ne- 
ver have taken him up for an hour, as you would a 
TuUy, or drank your tea over him ? I know how 
great an obstacle ill spirits are to resolution. Do 
you really think, if you rid ten miles every morning, 
in a week's time you should not entertain much 
stronger hopes of the chancellorship, and think it a 
much more probable thing than you do at present ? 
The advantages you mention are not nothing ; our 
inclinations are more than we imagine in our own 
power; reason and resolution detej-mine them, and 
support under many difficulties. To me there hard- 
ly appears to be any medium between a public life 
and a private one ; he who prefers the first, must put 
himself in a way of being serviceable to the rest of 
mankind, if he has a mind to be of any consequence 
among them : nay, he must not refuse being in a 
certain degreeeven dependent upon some men who 
already are so. If he has the good fortune to light 
on such as will make no ill use of his humility, there 
is no shame in this : if not,' his ambition dught to 
give place to a reasonable pride, and he should: ap- 
ply to the cultivation of his own mind those -abilities 
"Which he has not been permitted to use for others' 
service. Such a private fiappiness (supposing a 
small competence of fortune) is almost always in 
every one's power, and the proper enjoyment of 
age, as the other is the employxneut of youth. You 



110 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

are yet young, have some advantages and opportu- 
nities, and an undoubted Capacity, which you have 
never yet put to the trial Set apart a few hours, 
see how tiie first year will ag^ree with you, at the end 
of il you are still the master , if you change your 
mind, you will only have got the knowledge of a lit- 
tle somewhat that can do no hurt, or give you cause 
of repentance. If your inclination be not fixed upon 
any thing else, it is a symptom that you are not ab- 
solutely determined against this, and warns you not 
to mistake mere indolence for inability. I am sen- 
sible there is nothing stronger against what I would 
persuade you to, than my own practice ; which may 
make you imagine I think not as I speak. Alas ! it 
is not so ; but I do not act what 1 think, and I had 
rather be the object of your pity than that you should 
be that of mine ; and, be assured, the advantage I 
may receive from it, does not diminish my concern 
in hearing you want somebody to converse with 
freely, whose advice might be of more weight, and 
always at hand. We have some time since come to 
the southern period of our voyages ; we spejjt about 
nine days at Naples. It is the iarge'st and most po- 
pulous city, as its environs are the most deliciously 
fertile country, of all Italy. We sailed in the bay 
of Baise, sweated in the Solfatara, and died in the 
grotto del Cane, as all strangers do ; saw the Corpus 
Christi procession, and the king and the queen, and 
the city underground (which is a wonder I reserve 
to tell you of another time) and so returned to Rome 
for another fortnight ; left it (left Rome !) and came 



(3lRAY'S LETTERS. Ill 

Mlher for the summer. You have seen an Epistle* 
to Mr. Ashton, that seems to me full ol' spi rit and 
thought, and a good deal of poetic fire. I would 
know yoWr opinion. Now I talk of verses, Mr. Wal- 
pole and I have frequently wondered you should ne- 
ver mention a certain imitation of Spencer, publish- 
ed last year by a nanjpsaket of yours, with which 
we are all enraptured and enmarvailed. 

XXXVIL 

TO HIS MOTHER. 

Florence, Aug. 21, N. S. 1740. 
It is some time sixice 1 have had the pleasure oi wri- 
ting to you, having been upon a little excursion cross 
the mountains to Bologna. We set out from hence 
at sunset, passed the Apennines by moon-light, tra- 
velling incessantly till we came to Bologna at four in 
the afternoon next day. There we spent a week 
agreeably enough, and returned as we came. The 
day before yesterday arrived the news of a pope : 
and 1 have the mortification of being within four 
days' journey of Rome, and not seemg his corona- 
tion, the heats being violent, and the infectious air 
now at its height. We had an instance, the other 
day, that it is not only fancy. Two country fellows, 
strong men, and used to the country about Rome, 

* The reader will find this among Mr. Walpole's Fugitive 
Pieces. 
t " On the Abuse of Travelling," by Gilbert West, 



112 GiRArS LETTERS. 

having occasion to come from thence hither, and ti'a- 
veiling on foot, as common with them, one died sud- 
denly on the road ; the other got hither, but extreme- 
ly weak, and in a manner stupid : he was carried to 
the hospital, but died in two days. So, between fear 
and laziness, we remain here, and must be satisfied 
with the accounts other people give us of the matter. 
The new pope is called Benedict XIV. being created 
cardinal by Benedict XIII. the last pope but one. 
His name is Lambertini, a noble Bulognese, and ai'ch- 
bishopof that city. When I was first there, I remember 
to have seen him two or three times ; he is a short| 
fat man, about sixty-five years of age, of a hearty, 
Mierry countenance, and likely to live some years. 
He bears a good character for geiierosity, affability, 
and other virtues; and, they say, wants neither know- 
ledge nor capacity. The worst side of him is, that 
he has a nephew or two ; besides a certain young fa- 
vourite, calh^d Melara, who is said to have had, for 
some time, the arbitrary disposal of his purse and fa^ 
mily. He is reported to have imade a little speech to 
the cardinals in the conclave, while they were unde- 
termined about an election, ais follows : " Most emi- 
nent lords, here are three Bolognese of different cha- 
racters, but all equally proper for the popedom. If 
it be your pleasure to pitch upon a saint, there is 
cai'dinal Gotti ,; if upon a politician, there is Aldro- 
vandi ; if upon a booby, here am I." The Italian is 
much more expressive, and, indeed not to be trans- 
lated ; wherefore, if you meet with any body that un- 
derstands it, you may show them what he said in the 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 113 

language he spoke it. " Eminssimi. SigH. Ci siarao 
tre, oivprsi sj, nia tutti idonei al Papato. Se vi piace 
un Santo, c' e I'Gotti ; se volote una testa scaltra, e 
Politica, c' e I'Aldrovande; se un Coglione, ecco mi!" 
Cardinal Coscia is restored to his liberty, and, it 13 
said, will be to all his benefices. Corsini (the late 
pope's nephew) as he has had no hand in this election, 
it is hoped, will be called to account for all his villa- 
nous practices. The Pretender, they say, has resigned 
all his pretensions to his eldest boy, and will accept of 
the grand chancellorship, which is thirty thousand 
ci'owvis a-year ; the pension he has at present is only 
twenty thousand. I do not affirm the truth of this last 
article ; because, if he does, it is necessary he should 
take the ecclesiastical habit, and it will sound migh- 
ty odd to be called his majesty the chancellor. — So 
ends my gazette. 

XXXVIII. 

TO HIS FATHER. 

Florence, Oct. 9, 1740., 
The beginning of next spring is the time determined 
for our return at furthest; possibly it may be before 
that time. How the interim will be employed, or 
what route we shall take, is not so certain. If we 
remain friends with France, upon leaving this coun- 
try we shall cross over to Venice, and" so return 
through the cities north of the Po to Genoa ; from 
Tcnce take a felucca to Marseilles, and come back 
K 2 



1\4 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

through Paris. If the contrary fall out, which seems 
not unhkely, we must take the Milanese, and those 
parts of Italy, in our way to Venice ; from thence 
must pass through the Tyrol into Germany, and come 
home by the Low-Countries. As for Florence, it 
lias been gayer than ordinary for tliis last month, 
being one round of balls and entertainments, occa- 
sioned by the arrival of a great Milanese lady ; for 
the only thing the Italians shine in, is their reception 
of strangers. At such times every thing is magni- 
ficence : the more remarkable, as in their ordinary 
course of life they are parsimonious, even to a degree 
of nastiness. I saw in one of the vastest palaces in 
Rome, that of prince Pamfilio, the apartment which 
he himself inhabited, a bed that most servants in Eng- 
land would disdain to lie in, and furniture much like 
that of a soph at Cambridge, for convenience and 
neatness. This man is worth 30,000/. sterling a year. 
As for eating, there are not two cardinals in Rome 
that allow more than six paoli, which is three shillings 
a day, for the expense of their table ; and you may 
imagine they are still less extravagant here than 
there. But when they receive a visit from any friend, 
their houses and persons are set out to the greatest 
advantage, and appear in all their splendour ; it is, 
indeed, from a motive of vanity, and with the hopes 
of having it repaid them with interest, whenever they 
have occasion to return the visit. I call visits going 
from one city of Italy to another; for it is not so 
among aquaintance of the same place on common 
eccasionsi The new pope has retrenched the charges 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 115 

of his own table to a sequin (ten shillings) a meal. 
The applause which all he says and does meet with, 
is enough to encourage him really to deserve fame. 
They say he is an able and honest man : he is reck- 
oned a wit too. The other day, when the senator of 
Rome came to wait upon him, at the first compli- 
ments he made him the pope pulled off his cap. His 
master of the ceremonies, who stood by his side, 
touched him softly, as to warn him that such a con- 
descension was too great in him, and out of all man- 
ner of rule. Upon which he turned to him, and said, 
" Oh! I cry you mercy, good master : it is true, I 
am but a novice of a pope ; I have not yet so much 
as learned ill manners." ^ * * 

XXXIX. 

TO HIS FATHER. 

Florence, Jan. 12, 1741. 
We still continue constant at Florence, at present 
one of the dullest cities in Italy. Though it is the 
middle of the carnival, there are no public diver- 
sions ; nor is masquerading permitted as yet The 
emperor's obsequies are to be celebrated publicly 
the 16th of this month ; and after that, it is imagin- 
ed every thing will goon in its usual course. In the 
mean time, to employ the minds of the populace, 
the government has thought fit to bring into the city 
in a solemn manner, and at a great expense, a fa- 
mous statue of the Virgin, called the Madonna dell'- 



116 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

Impruneta, from the place of her residence, whick 
is upon a mountain seven miles off. It never has 
been practised but at times of public calamity ; and 
was done at present to avert the ill effects of a late 
great inundation, which it was feared might cause 
some epidemical distemper. It was introduced a 
fortnight ago in procession, attended by the council 
of regency, the senate, the nobility, and all the reli- 
gious orders, on foot and bare-headed, and so car- 
ried to the great church, where it was frequented by 
an infinite concourse of people from all the country 
round. Among the rest, I paid my devotions al- 
most every day, and saw numbers of people possess- 
ed with the devil, who were brought to be exorcised. 
It was indeed in the evening, and the church-doors 
were always shut before the ceremonies were finish- 
ed, so that 1 could not be eye-witness of the event ; 
but that they were all cured is certain, for one never 
heard any more of them the next morning. I am 
to-night just returned from seeing our lady make 
her exit with the same solemnities she entered. The 
show had a finer effect than before ; for it was dark, 
and every body (even those of the mob that could 
afford it) bore a white-wax flambeau. I believe 
there were at least five thousand of them, and the 
march was near three hours in passing before the 
window. The subject of all this devotion is suppos- 
ed to be a large tile with a rude figure in bas-relief 
upon it. I say supposed, because since tlie time it 
was found (for it was found in the earth in plough- 
ing) only two people have seen it ; the one waS; by 



GRAY'S LETTERS. lU 

good Ijjick, a saint ; the other was struck blind for 
his presumption. Ever since she has been covered 
vs'ith seven veils ; nevertheless, those who approach 
her tabernacle cast their eyes down, for fear thej 
should spy her through all her veils. Such is the 
history, as I had from the lady of the house where 
I stood to see her pass ; with many other circum- 
stances : all of which she firmly believes, and ten 
thousand besides. 

We shall go to Venice , in about six weeks, or 
sooner. A number of German troops are upon their 
march Into this state, in case the king of Naples 
thinks proper to attack it. It is certain that he 
asked the pope's leave for his troops to pass through 
his country. The Tuscans in general are much dis- 
contented, and foolish enough to wish for a Spanish 
government, or any rather than this. * * « 

XL. 

TO MR. WEST. 

Florence, April 2l, 1741, 
I KNOW not what degree of satisfaction it will give 
you to be told that ^e shall set out from hence the 
24th of this month, and not stop above a fortnight at 
any place in our way. This I feel, that you are the 
principal pleasure I have to hope for in my own 
country. Try at least to make me imagine myself 
not indifferent to you ; for I must own I have the va- 
nity of desiring to be esteemed by somebody, and 



118 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

would choose that somebody should be one whom I 
esteem as much as I do you. As 1 am recommend- 
ing myselJ" to your love, methlnks I ought to send 
you my picture (for I am no more what I was, some 
circumstances excepted, which I hope I need not 
particularize to you ;) you must adtl then, to your 
former idea^ two years of age, a reasonable quan- 
tity of dulness, a great deal of silence, and some- 
thing that rather resembles, than is, thinking ; a 
confused notion of many strange and fine tilings that 
have swum before my eyes for some time, a want of 
love for general society, indeed an inability to it. 
On the good side you may add a sensibility for what 
others feel, and indulgence for their faults or weak- 
nesses, a love of truth, and detestation of every 
thing else. Then you are to deduct a little imperti- 
nence, a little laughter, a great deal of pride, and 
some spirits. These are all the alterations I know 
of, you perhaps ma^ find more. Think not that I 
have been obliged for this reformation of manners 
to reason or reflection, but to a severer school-mis- 
tress, experience One has little merit in learning 
her lessons, for one cannot well help it ; but they 
are more useful than others, and imprint themselves 
in the very heart. I find I have been haranguing in 
the style of the Son of Sirach, so shall finish here, 
and tell you that our route is settled as follows : 
first to Bologna for a few days, to hear the Viscon- 
tina sing ; next to Reggio, where is a fair. i\ow, 
you must know, a fair here is not a place where one 
ejsits gingerbread or rides upon hobby-horses j here 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 110 

are no musical clocksj nor tall Leicestershire wo- 
men ; one has nothing but masquing, gaming, and 
singing. If you love operas, th^re will be the most 
splendid in Italy, four tip-top voices, anew theatre, 
the duke and duchess in all their pomps and vani- 
ties. Does not this sound magnificent .'' Yet is the 
city of Reggio but one step above Old Brentford. 
Well ; next to Venice by the 11th of May, there to 
see the old Doge wed the Adriatic whore. Then to 
Verona, so to Milan, so to Marseilles, so to Lyons; 
so to Paris, so to West, &c. in saecula saeculoruni. 
Amen. 

:'■ Eleven months, at different times, have I passed 
at Florence ; and yet (God help me) know not ei- 
ther people or language. Yet the place and the 
charming prospects demand a poetical farewell, and 
here it is. 

* * Oh Ffesulas amoena 
Frigoribus juga, nee nimium spirantibus aurls. 
Alma quibus Tusci Pallas Deus Apennini 
Esse dedit, glaucaque sua canescere silva ! 
Non ego vos posthac Arni de valle videbo 
Porticibus circum, et candenti cincta corona 
Villarum longe nitido consurgere dorso, 
Antiquamve sedem, et veteres prseferre cupressus 
Mirabor, tectisque super pendentia tecta. 

I will send you, too, a pretty little sonnet of a 
Signor Abbate Buondelmoifte, with my imitatiea 
)f it. 



120 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

Spesso Amor srtto la forma 
D'amista ride, e s'asconde ; 
Poi si mischia, e si confonde 
Con lo sdegiio, e col rancor. 
In Pietade ei si trasforma ; 
Par trastuUo, e par dispetto ; 
Md nel suo diverso aspetto 
Sempr'egli, e I'istesso Amor. 

Lusit amicitise interdum velatus amictu, 

Et bene composita veste fefellit Amor. 
Mox irse assumsit cultus, faciemque minantem, 

Inque odium versus, versus et in lacrymas ; 
Ludentem fuge, nee lacrymanti, aut crede furenti j 

Idem est dissimili semper in ore Deus. 

Here comes a letter from you. — I must defer giv- 
ing Tiiy opinion of *Pausanias till I can see the 
whole, and only have said what I did in obedience 
to your commands. I have spoken with such free- 
dom on this head, that it seems but just you should 
have your revenge ; and therefore I send you the 
beginning not of an epic poem, but of 1a metaphy- 
sic one. Poems and metaphysics (say you, with 
your spectacles on) are inconsistent things. A me- 
taphysical poem is a contradiction in terms. It is 
true, but I will go on. It is Latin too to increase the 
absurdity. It will, I suppose, put you in mind of the 

* Some part of a tragedy under that title, which Mr. West 
had begun. 

t The beginnings of the first book of a didactic poem, " Pe 
Principiis Cogitandi."— (See Poems. 



GRAY'S LETTERS, 121 

man who wrote a treatise of canon law in hexame- 
ters. Pray help me to the description of a mixed 
mode, and a little episode about space. 



Mr. Walpole and Mr. Gray set out from Florence at the time 
specified in the foregoing letter. When Mr. Gi'ay left Venice, 
which he did the middle of July following-, he returned home 
through Padua, Verona, Milan, Turin, and Lyons ; from all 
which places he writ either to liis father or mother with great 
punciuality : but merely to inform them of his health and safe- 
ty ; about which (as might be expected) they were now very 
an?:ious, as he travelled with only a " Laquais de Voyage." 
These letters do not even mention that he went out of his way 
to make a second visit to the Grande Chartreuse, and there 
wrote in the Album of the Fathers the Alcaic Ode : 

Oh Tu, severi Religio loci, ice. — iSee Poent':. 

He was at Turin the I5th of August, and began to cross the 
Alps the next day. On the 25th he reached Lyons 5 therefore 
it must have been between these two dates that he made this 
viiit. 

XLI. 

FROM MK. WEST. 

I WRITE to make you write, for I have not much to 
tell you. I have recovered no spirits as yet,* but, 

* The distresses of Mr. West's mind had already too far af- 
fected a body, from the first weak and delicate, ills health de- 
clined daily, and, therefore, he left town in March, 1742, and, 
for the benefit of tlie air, went lo David Mitchell's, Esq. at 
Popes, near Hatfield, Hertfordshire; at whose house he died 
its- 1st of June following. 

L 



123 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

as I am not displeased with my company, I sit par. 
ring by the fire-side in my arra-chair with no small 
satisfaction. I read too sometimes, and have begun 
Tacitus, but have not yet read enough to judge of 
liim ; only his Pannonian sedition in the first book 
of his annals, which is just as far as I have got, 
seemed to me a little tedious. I have no more to 
say, but to desire you will write letters of a hand- 
some length, and always answer- i>ie within a rea- 
sonable space of time, which I leave to your dis- 
eretion. 

' Popes, March 28, 1742. 

P. S. The new Dunciad ! qu'en pensez vous f 

XLII. 

TO MR. WEST.* 

\ TRUST to the country, and that easy indolence you 
say you enjoy there, to restore you your health and 
spirits ; and doubt not but, when the sun grows 
warm enough to tempt you from your fire-side, you 
will (like all other things) be the better for his influ- 
ence. He is my old friend, and an excellent nurse, 
I assure you. Had it not been for him, life had been 
often to me intolerable. Pray do not imagine that 

* Mr. Gray came to town about the 1st of September, 1741. 
His father died the 6th of November following, at the age of 
sixty-five. The latter end of the subsequent year he went to 
Cambridge to take his bncheler's degree in civil law. 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 123 

Tacitus, of all authors in the world, can be tedious. 
An*Rnnalist, you know, is by no means master of 
his subject ; and I think one may venture to say, 
that if those Pannonjan affairs are tedious in his 
hands, in another's they would have been insup- 
portable. However, fear not, tKey will soon be 
over, and he will make ample amends. A man, who 
could join the brilliant of wit and concise sententi- 
ousness peculiar to that age, with the truth and gra- 
vity of better times, and the deep reflection and good 
sense of the best moderns, cannot choose but have 
something to strike you. Yet what 1 admire in him 
above all this, is his detestation of tyranny, and the 
high spirit of liberty that every now and then breaks 
out, as it were, whether he would or no. I remem- 
ber a sentence in his Agricola that (concise as it is) 
I always admired for saying much in a little com- 
pass. He speaks of Domitian, who upon seeing the 
last will of that general, where he had made hira 
coheir with his wife and daughter, " Satis constabat 
Isetatum eum, velut honore, judicioque : tarn caeca et 
corrupta mens assiduis adnlationibus erat, ut nesci- 
ret a bono patre non scribi hasredem, nisi malum 
principem." 

As to the Dunciad, it is greatly admired : the 
genii of Operas and Schools, with their attendants, 
the pleas of the Virtuosos and Florists, and the yawn 
of Dulness in the end, are as fine as any thing he 
has written. The Metaphysician's part is to me the 
worst ; and here and there a few ill- expressed lines^ 
and some hardly intelligible. 



124 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

I take the liberty of sending you a long speech o^^ 
Agrippina ;" much too long, but I couJd be glad you 
would retrench it. Aceronia, you may remember, 
had been giving quiet counsels. I fancy, if it ever 
be finished, it will be in the nature of Nat. Lee's bed- 
lam tragedy, which had twenty-five acts and some 
odd scenes. 

XLIIL 
FROM MR. WEST. 

Popes, April 4, 1742. 

? OWN in general I think Agrippina's speech too 
long; but how to retrench it, I know not : but I 
have soraethino^ else to say, and that is in relation to 
the style, which appears to me too antiquated. Ra- 
cine was of another opinion : he no where gives you 
the phrases of Ronsard : his language is the-lan- 
guage of the times, and that of the purest sort ; so 
that his French is reckoned a standard. I will not 
decide what style is fit for our English stage : but I 
should rather choose one tiiat bordered upon Cato, 
than upon Shakspeare. One may imitate (if one 
can) Shakpeare's manner, his surprising strokes of 
true nature, his expressive force in painting charac- 
ters, and all his other beauties ; preserving at the 
same time our own language. Were Shakspeare 
aJive now, he would write in a different style from 
what he did. These are my sentiments upon these 

* See Poems. 



©RAY'S LETTERS. 126 

matters : perhaps I am wrong-, for I am neither a 
Tarpa, nor atn I quite an Aristarchus. You see I 
write freely both of you and Shakspeare ; but it is 
as good as writing not freely, where you know it is 
acceptable. 

I have been tormented within this week with a 
roost violent cough ; for when once it sets up its 
note, it will go on, cough afier cough, shaking and 
tearing me for half an hour together ; and then it 
loaves me iu a great sweat, as much fatigued as if I 
had been labouring at the plough. All this descrip- 
tion of my cough in prose, is only to introduce an- 
other description of it in verse, perhaps not worth 
your perusal ; but it is very short, and besides has 
this remarkable in it, that it was the production of 
four o'clock in the morning, while I lay in my bed 
tossing and coughing, and all unable to sleep. 

Ante omnes morbos iniportunissima tussis, i 

Qua durare dalur, traxitque sub ilia vires ; 
Dura elenim versans imo sub pectore regna, 
Perpetuo exercet leneras luctamine costas, 
Oraque distorquet, vocemque immutat anhelam ', 
Nee cessare locus ; sed scevo concita motu, 
MoUe domat latus, et corpus labor omne fatigat ; 
Unde molesta dies, noctemque insomnia turbant. 
Nee Tua, si mecum Comes hie jucundus adesses, 
•Verba juvare queant, aut hunc lenire dolorem 
Sufficiant tua vox dulcis, nee vultus amatus. 

Do not mistake me, 1 do not condemn Tacitus : I 
was then inclined to find him tedious : the German 
L 2 



126 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

sedition suflSciently made up for it ; and the speeck 
of Germanicus, by which he reclaims his soldiers, 
is quite masterly. Your New Dunciad I have no 
conception of. I shall be too late for our dinner if I 
write any more. 

Yours. 

XLIIL 

TO DR. WHARTON.^- 

Cambridge, Dec. 27, 1742. 
I OUGHT to have returned you my thaoks a long time 
ago, for the pleasure, I should say prodig-y, of your 
letter ; for such a thing has not happened above twice 
within this last age to mortal man, and no one here 
can conceive what it may portend. You have heard, 
I suppose, how I have been employed a part of the 
time; how, by my own indefatigable application for 
these ten years past, and by tlic care and vigilance 
of that worthy magistrate the man in bluest (who, I 
assui'e you, has not spared his labour, nor could have 
done more for his own son) ( am got half way to the 
top of jurisprudence, t and bid as fair as another 

* Of Old-Park, near Durham. With this g-cntleman Mr. Gray- 
contracted an acquaintance very early : and though they were 
Mot educated at Eton, yet afterwards at Cambridge, when the 
doctor was fellow of Pembrolie-Hall, they became intiiaate 
friends, and continued so to the time of Mr. U ray's death. 

t A servant of the vice-chancellor's for the time being, usual- 
ly known by the name of Blue Coat, whose business it is to at- 
tend acts for degrees, &c. 

ti.e. Bachelor of civil law. 



GKAV'S LETTERS. 237 

hody to open a case of itnpotency with all decency 
find circumspection. You see my ambition. I do 
not doubt but some thirty years hence I shall con- 
vince (he workl and you that I am a very pretty 
yogng" fellow ; and may come to shine in a profes- 
sion, perhaps the noblest of all, except man-mid- 
wifery. As for yon, if your distemper and you can 
but agree about going to London, I may reasonabiy 
expect in a much shorter time to see you in your 
three-cornered villa, doing the honours of a well-fur- 
nished table with as much dignity, as rich a mien, and 
as capacious a belly, as Dr. Mead, Methinks 1 see 
Dr. ^ *, at the lower end of it, lost in admiration of 
your goodly person and parts, cramming down his 
envy (for it will rise) with the wing of a pheasant^ 
and drowning it in neat Burgundy. But not to tempt 
your asthma too much with such a prospect, I should 
think you might be almost as happy and as great as 
this even in the country. But you know best, and I 
should be sorry to say any thing that might stop you 
in the career of glory ; far be it from me to hamper 
the wheels of your gilded chariot. Go on, Sir Tho- 
mas ; and when you die, (for even physicians must 
die) may the facuiJy in Warwick-lane erect your sta- 
tue in the very niche of Sir John Cutler's. 

I was going to tell you how sorry I am for youi' 
illness, but I hope it is too late now : I can only say 
that I really was very sorry. May you live a hun- 
dred Christmasses, and eat as many collars of brawn 
stuck with rosemarv. Adieu, &c. 



128 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

XLV. 

TO DR. WHARTON. 

Peterhousc, April 26, 1744. 
You write so feeling^ly to Mr. Brown, and represent 
your abandoned condition in terms so touching-, that 
w'hat gratitude could not effect in several months, 
compassion has brought about in a few days ; and 
broke that strong attachment, or rather allegiance, 
which I and all here owe to our sovereign lady and 
mistress, the president of presidents and head of 
heads, (If ! may be permitted to pronounce her name, 
that ineffable Octogrammaton) the power of Laziness. 
You must know she had been pleased to appoint me 
(in preference to so many old servants of hers who 
had spent their whole lives in qualifying themselves 
for the office) grand picker of straws and push-pin 
player to her supinity, (for that is her title.) The 
first is much in the nature of lord president of the 
council ; and the other like the groom-porter, only 
without the profit ; but as they are both things of 
very great honour in this country, I consider with 
myself the load of envy attending such great char- 
ges ; and besides (between you and me) I found my- 
self unable to support the fatigue of keeping up the 
appearance that persons of such dignity must do ; so 
I thought proper to decline it, and excused myself as 
well as I could. However, as you see such an affair 
must take up a good deal of time, and it has always 
been the policy of this court to proceed slowly, like 
the Imperial and that of Spain, in the dispatch of 



GRAY'S LETTERS. i21> 

business, you will on this account the easier forgive 
me, if I have not answered your letter before, 

Yoff desire to know, it seems, what character the 
poem of you.i young friend bears here.* I wonder 
that you ask the opinion of a nation, where those, 
who pretend to judge, do not judge at all ; and the 
rest (the wiser part) wait to catch the judgment of 
the world immediately above them ; that is, Dick's 
and the Rainbow Coffee-houses. Your readier way 
would be to ask the ladies that keep the bars ia 
those two theatres of criticism. However, to show 
you that I am a judge, as well as my countrymen, I 
will tell you, though I have rather turned it over than 
read it (but no matter ; no more have they.) that it 
seems to me above the middling ; and now and then, 
for a iitile while, rises even to the best, particularly 
in description. It is often obscure, and even unintel- 
ligible ; and too much infected with the Hutchinson 
jargon, in short, its great fault is, that it was pub- 
lished at least nine years too early. And so methinks 
in a few words, " a la mode du Temple," I have very 
pertly dispatched what perhaps may for several years 
have employed a very ingenious man worth fifty of 
myself. 

You are much in the right to have a taste for So- 
crates ; be was a divine man. I must tell you by way 
of news of the place, that the other day ascertain new 

* Pleasures of the Iniagfination : — From the posthumous publi- 
cation of Dr. Akenside's Poems, it should seem that the author 
had vei-y much the same opinion afterwards of his own work, 
which Mr. Gray here expresses 5 since he undertook a refonn of 
it, which must have given him, had he concluded it, as muck 
fe-ouble as if he had written it entirely new. 



130 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

professor m£ide an- apology for him an hour long ia 
the schools ; and all the world broug;ht in SocrateS 
guilty, except the people of his own college. 

The muse is gone, and left me in far worse com- 
pany ; if she returns, you will hear of her. As to 
her child"'* (since you are so good as to inquire after 
it) it is but a puling chit yet, not a bit grown to speak 
of; I believe, poor thing it has got the worms, that 
will carry it off at last. Mr. Ti oUope and I are in a 
course of tar-waier ; he for his present, and I for my 
future distempers. If you think it will kill me, send 
away a man and horse directly ; for I drink like a 
fish. 

XLV. 

TO MR. WALPOLE. 

Cambridge, Feb. 3, 1746. 
You are so good to inquire aftei* my usual time of 
coming to town : it is at a season when even you, the 
perpetual friend of London, will, 1 fear, hardly beia 
it — the middle of June : and I commonly return hi- 
ther in September ; a month when I may more pror 
bably find you at home. 

Our defeat to be sure is a rueful affair for the ho- 
nour of the troops ; but the diike is gone it seems 
with the rapidity of a cannon-bullet to undefeat us 
again. The common people in town at least know 
how to be afraid; but we are such uncommon peo- 

* His poem " De. Principiis Cogitandi." 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 131 

pie here as to have no more sense of danger, than 
if the'battle had been fought when and where the bat- 
tle of Cannae was. The perception of these calamities 
and of their consequences, that we are supposed to 
get from books, is so faintly impressed, that we talk 
of war, famine and, pestilence, with no more appre- 
hension than of a broken head, or of a coach over- 
turned between York and Edinburgh. I heard three 
people, sensible middle aged men (when the Scotch 
were said to be at Stanford, and actually were at 
Derby,) talking of hiring a chaise to go to Caxton 
(a place in the high road) to see the Pretender and 
the highlanders as they passed. 

I can say no more for Mr. Pope (for what you 
keep in reserve may be worse than all the rest.) It 
is natural to wish the finest writer, one of them, 
we ever had, should be an honest man. It is for 
the interest even of that virtue, whose friend he 
professed himself, and whose beauties he sung, that 
he should not be found a dirty animal. But, how- 
ever, this is Mr. VVarburton's business, not mine, 
who may scribble his pen to the stumps and all in 
vain, if these facts are so. It is not from what he 
told me about himself that I thought well of him, 
but froni a humanity and goodness of heart, ay, and 
greatness of mind, that runs through his private 
correspondence, not less apparent than are a thou- 
sand little vanities and weaknesses mixed with thosa 
good qualities ; for nobody ever took him for a phi- 
losopher. 

y If you know any thing of Mr. Mami's state of 
health and happiness, or the motions of Mr. Chute 



132 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

homewards, it will be a particular favour to infornt 
me of them, as I have not heard this half-year from 
them. 

XL VI. 

TO DR. WHARTON. 

Cambfidg-e, December 11, 1746. 
i WOULD make you an excuse (as indeed I ought,) 
if they were a sort of thing I ever gave any credit 
to myself in these cases ; but I know they are never 
true. Nothing so silly as indolence when it hopes to 
disguise itself; every one knows it by its saunter, as 
they do his majesty (God hJess him) at a masque- 
rade, by the firmness of his tread and the elevatiou 
of his chin. However, somewhat I had to say that 
has a little shadow of reason in it. I have been ia 
town (I suppose you know) flaunting about at all 
kind of public places with two friends lately return- 
ed from abroad. The world itself has some attrac- 
tions in it to a solitary of six years' standing : and 
agreeable well-meaning people of sense (thank hea- 
ven there are so few of them) are my peculiar mag- 
net. It is no wonder then if 1 felt some reluctance 
at parting with them so soon ; or if my spirits, when 
I returned back to my cell, should sink for a timcj 
not indeed to storm and tempest, but a good deal 
below changeable. Besides, Seneca says (and my 
pitch of philosophy does not pretend to be nuich 
above Seneca,) " Nunquan; mores, quos extuli, re- 
fero. Aiiquid ex eo quod coniposui, turbatur : all- 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 133 

Huid ex his, quaj fugavi, redit." And it will happen 
to suclh as us, mere imps of science. Well it may, 
when wisdom herself is forced often 

In sweet retired solitude 
•» plume her feathers, and let grow her wings, 
That in the various bustle of resort 
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impaired. 

It is a foolish thing that without money one can- 
not either live as one pleases, or where and with 
whom one pleases. Swift somewhere says, that 
money is liberty ; and I fear money is friendship 
too and society, and almost every external blessing-. 
It is a great, though an ill-natured, comfort, to see 
most of those who have it in plenty, without plea- 
sure, without liberty, and without friends. 

I am not altogether of your opinion as to yonr 
historical consolation in time of trouble : a calm 
melancholy it may produce, a stiller sort of despair 
(and that only in some circumstances, and on some 
constitutions ;) but I doubt no real comfort or con- 
tent can ever arise in the human mind, but from 
hope. 

I take it very ill you should have been in the 
twentieth year of the war,* and yet say nothing of 
the retreat before Syracuse : is it, or is it not, the 
finest thing you ever read in your life .? And how 
does Xenophon or Plutarch agree with you ? For 
my part I read Aristotle, his poetics, politics, and 
raorjtls ; though I do not well know which is which- 

-'' Thucydides, 1. viK 
M 



134 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

In the first place, he is the hardest author by far I 
ever meddled with. Then he has a dry conciseness 
that makes one imagine one is perusing a table of 
contents rather than a book : it tastes for all the 
world like chopped hay, or rather like choppe'' logic • 
for he has a violent affection to that art, being in 
some sort his own invention ; so that he often loses 
himself in little trifling distinctions and verbal nice- 
ties ; and, what is worse, leaves you to extricate 
him as well as you caja. Thirdly, he has suffered 
vastly from the transcribblers, fts all authors of 
great brevity necessarily must. Fourthly and last- 
ly, he has abundance of fine uncommon things, 
which make him well worth the pains he gives one. 
You see what you are to expect from him. 

XLVII. 

TO MR. WALPOLE. 

January, 1747. 
It is doubtless an encouragement to continue wri- 
ting to you, when you tell me you answer me with 
pleasure : I have another reason which would make 
me very copious, had I any thing to say : it is, that 
I write to you with equal pleasure, though not with 
equal spirits, nor with like plenty of materials r 
please to subtract then so much for spirit, and so 
much for matter; and you will find me, I hope^ 
neither so slow, nor so short, as I might otherwise 
seem. Besides, I had a. mind to sead you the rt- 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 1^5 

mainder of Agrippina, that was lost in a wilderness 
of papers. Certainly you do her too much honour : 
she seemed to me to talk like an Oldboy, all in 
figures and mere poetry, instead of nature and the 
language of real passion. Do you remember Jip- 
prochez-vous* Meron. — Who would not rather have 
thought of that half line than all Mr. Rowe's flowers of 
eloquence ? However, you will find the remainder 
here at the end in an outrageous long speech : it 
was begun about four years ago (it is a misfortune 
you know my age, else I might have added, wlien T 
was very young.) Poor West put a stop to that 
tragic torrent he saw breaking in upon him : — have 
a care, I warn you, not to set open the flood-gate 
again, lest it drown you and me and the bishop and 
all. 

I am very sorry to hear you treat philosophy and 
her followers like a parcel of monks and hermits, 
and think myself obliged to vindicate a profession I 
honour, bien que je n'en tienne pas boutique (as 
Madame Sevigne says.) The first man that ever 
bore the name, if you remember, used to say, vhat 
life was like the Olympic games (the greatest public 
assembly of his age and countrv,) where some came 
to show their strength and agility of body, as the 
champions ; others, as the musicians, orators, poets, 
and historians, to show their excellence in those 
arts ; the traders, to get money ; and the better sort, 
to enjoy the spectacle, and judge of all these. They 
did not then run away from society for fear of its 

* Affrippina, in Racine's trajedjof Britanni««s. B. 



136 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

temptations : they passed their days in the midst of 
it : conversation was their business : they cultivated 
the arts of persuasion, on purpose to show men it 
was their interest, as well as their duty, not to 1t>e 
foolish, and false, and unjust ; and that too in many 
instances' with success : which is not very strange ; 
for they showed by their life that their lessons were 
not impracticable ; and that pleasures were no temp- 
tations, but to such as wanted a clear perception of 
the pains annexed to them,* But I have done speak- 
ing a la Grecque. Mr. Ratcliffef made a shift to 
behave very rationally without their instructions, at 
a season which they took a great deal of pains to 
fortify themselves and others against : one would not 
desire to lose one's head with a better grace. 1 am 
particularly satisfied with the humanity of that last 
embrace to all the people about him. Sure it must 
be somewhat embarrassing to die before so much 
good company ! 

You need not fear but posterity will be ever glad 
to know the absurdity of their ancestors : the foolish 
will be glad to know they were as foolish as they, 
and the wise will be glad to find themselves wiser. 

* Never perhaps was a more admirable picture drawn of true 
philosophy and its real and important services •, services not 
confined to the speculative opinions of the studious, but adapted 
to the common purposes of life, and promoting the general hap- 
piness of mankind ; not upon the chimerical basis of a system 
but on the immutable foundations of truth and virtue. B. 

t Brother to the earl of Derwentvvater. He was executed at 
Tyburn, December, 1746, for having been concerned in the re- 
bellion in Scotland. £. 



©RAY'S LETTERS. 137 

Tou will please all the world then ; and if you re- 
count miracles you will be believed so much the 
sooner. We are pleased when we wonder ; and we 
believe because we are pleased. Folly and wisdom, 
and wonder and pleasure, join with me in desiring- 
you would continue to entertain them : refuse us, if 
you cau. Adieu, dear Sir ! 

XLVIII. 

: TO MR. WALPOLL'. . 

Cambridge, March 1, 1747. 

As one ought to be particularly careful to avoid 
blunders in a compliment of condolence, it would be 
a sensible satisfaction to me (before I testify my sor- 
row, and the sincere part I take in your misfortune) 
to know for certain, who it is I lament. I knew 
^ara and Selima, (Selima, was it, or Fatima .'') or 
rather I knew them both together ; for I cannot just- 
ly say which was which. — Then as to your hand- 
some cat, the name you distinguish her by, I am no 
less at a loss, as well knowing one's handsome cat 
is always the cat one likes best ; or, if one be alive 
and the other dead, it is usually the latter that is the 
handsomest. Besides, if the point were never so 
clear, [ hope you do not think me so ill-bred or so 
imprudent as to forfeit all my interest in the sur- 
viver : Oh no ! I would rather seem to mistake, and 
imagine to be sure it must be the tabby one that had 
met with this sad accident. Till this affair is a little 
M 2 



1,38 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

better determined, you will excuse me if I do not 
begin to cry ; 

" Tempus inane peto, requiem, spatiumque doloris." 

Which interval is the more convenient, as it gives 
time to rejoice w^ith you on your new honours.* 
This is only a beginning ; I reckon next week we 
shall hear you are a free-mason, or a gormogon at 
least. — Heigh ho ! I feel (as you to be sure have done 
long since) that I have very little to say, at least in 
prose. Somebody will be the better for it ; I do not 
mean you, but your cat, feue mademoiselle Selime, 
whom I am about to immortalize for one week or 
fortnight, as follows :t * * * — There's a poem for 
you J it is rather too long for an epitaph. 



XLIX. 



TO DR. WHARTON. 

Stoke, June 5, 1748. 
Your friendship has interested itself in my affairs 
so naturally, that I cannot help troubling you a little 

* Mr. Walpole was about this time elected a Fellow of the 
Royal Society. 

t The reader need hardly be told, that the 4th ode in the col- 
lection of his poems was inserted in the place of these asterisks. 
This letter (as some other slight ones have been) is printed 
chiefly to mark the date of one cf his composiHons. 



©RiVY'S LETTERS. 139 

with a detail of them * «****«** And now, 
my dear Wharton, why must I tell you a thing so 
contrary to my own wishes and yours ? I believe it is 
impossible for me to see you in the north, or to en- 
joy aQ|c of those agreeable hours I had flattered my- 
self with. This business will oblige me to be in town 
several times during the summer, particularly in 
August, when half the money is fo be paid; besides 
the good people here would think me the most care- 
less and ruinous of mortals, if I should take such a 
journey at this time. The only satisfaction I can 
pretend to, is that of hearing from you, and parti- 
cularly at this time when I was bid to expect the 
good news of an increase of your family. Your 
opinion of Diodorus is doubtless right ; but there 
are things in him very curious, got out of better au- 
thorities now lost. Do you remember the Egyptian 
history, and particularly the account of the gold 
mines ? My own readings have been cruelly inter- 
rupted : what I have been highly pleased with, is 
the new comedy from Paris by Gresset, called le 
Mechant; if you have it not, buy his works all to- 
gether in two little volumes : they are collected by 
the Dutch booksellers, and consequently contain some 
trash ', but then there are the Ververt, the epistle to 
P. Bougeant, the Chartreuse, that to his sister, an 

* The paragraph here omitted contained an account of Mr. 
Gray's loss of a house l)y fire in Cornhill, and the expense he 
should be at in rebuilding it. Though it was insured, he could 
at this time ill bear to layout the additional sum necessary for 
the pui-posei 



140 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

ode on his country, and another on mediocrity, and 
the Sidnei, another comedy, all which have great 
beauties. There is also a poem lately published by 
Thomson, called the Castle of Indolence, with some 
good stanzas in it. Mr. Mason is my acquaintance ; 
1 liked that ode much, but have found no one else 
- that did. He has^nuch fancy, little judgment, and 
a good deal of modesty ; I take him for a good and 
••■.el' -meaning creature ; but then he is really in sim- 
plicity a child, and loves every body he meets with : 
he reads little or nothing ; writes abundance, and 
that with a design to make his fortune by it. My 
best comphmciits to Mrs. Wharton and your family : 
does that name include any body I am not yet ac- 
quamted with ? 

L. 

TO DR. WHARTON. 

Cambridge, August 8, i74f. 
f PROMISED Dr. Keene long since to give you an ac- 
count of our rnagniScence here ;* but the newspapers 
and he himself in nerson, have got the start of ray 
indolence, so that by this time you are well acquaint- 
ed with all the even«s that adorned that week of 
wonders. Thus miich I may venture to tell you, be- 
cause it is probable nobody else has done it, that our 
friend * *'s zeal and eloquence surj)assed all power 

* The Duke of Newcastle's Installation as Chancellor of vise 
University, 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 141 

of description, Vesuvio in an eruption was not more 
violent than his utterance, nor (since I am at my 
mountains) Pelion, with all its pine-trees in a storm 
of wind, more impetuous than his action ; and yet 
the se<ftte-house still stands, and (I thank God) we 
are all safe and well at yoiyf service. 1 was ready 
to sink for him, and scarce dared to look about me, 
when I was sure it was all over ; but soon found I 
might have spared my confusion ; all people joined 
to applaud him. Every thing was quite right ; and 
1 dare swear not three people here but think him a 
model of oratory ; for all the duke's little court came 
with a resolution to be pleased ; and when the tone 
was once given, the university, who ever wait for the 
judgment of their betters, struck into it with an ad- 
mirable harmony : for the rest of the performances, 
they were just what they usually are. Every one, 
while it lasted, was very gay and very busy in the 
morning, and very owlish and very tipsy at night : I 
make no exceptions from the chancellor to blue-coat. 
Mason's ode was the only entertainment that had any 
tolerable elegance ; and, for my own part, I think it 
(with some little abatements) uncommonly well on 
such an occasion. Pray let me know your sentiments ; 
for doubtless you have seen it. The author of it 
grows apace into my good graces, as I know him 
more ; he is very ingenious, with great good-nature 
and simplicity ; a little vain, but in so harmless and 
so comical a way, that it does not offend one at all ; 
a little ambitious, but withal so ignorant in the world 
and its ways that this does not hurt him in ones opi- 
nion ; so sincere and so undisguised, that no mind 



142 GRAY'S LETTERS. 

with a spark of generosity, would ever think of hurt- 
ing him, he lies so open to injury ; but so indolent, 
that if he cannot overcome this habit, all his good 
qualii^es will signify nothing at ah. After all, 1 like 
him so well, 1 could wish you knew him. 

♦ 

LL 



: TO HIS MOTHER. 

Cambridge, Nov. 7, 1749. 
The unhappy news I have just received from you 
eqi-ally surprises and afflicts me * I have lost a per- 
son I loved very much, and have been used to from 
tny infancy ; but am much more concerned for your 
lo.«s, fhe circumstances of which I forbear to dwell 
upon, as you must be too sensible of them yourself; 
and will, I fear, more and more need a consolation 
that no one car give, except He who has preserv- 
ed her to you so matiy yarSf apd, at last, when it 
was bis pleasure, has taken her from us to himself; 
and perhaps, if we reflect upon what she felt in this 
life, we may look upon this as an instance of his 
goodnfess both to her, and to those that loved her. 
She might have languished many years before our 
eyei in a continual increase of pain, and totally help- 
less ; she might have long wished to end her. misery 

* The death of his aunt, Mrs. Mai-y Antrobus, who died the 
5th of Noveiiiber, and -vas buried in a vault in Stoke church- 
yard, near the chancel door, in which also his mother and him- 
self (according to the direction in his will) were afterwards 
burjed. 



GRAY'S LETTERS. 1^ 

without being able to attain it ; or perhaps even lost 
all sense, and yet continued to breathe ; a sad spec- 
tacle to such as must have felt more for her than she 
could have done for herself. However you may de- 
plore your own loss, yet think that she is at last easy 
and happy ; and has no more occasion to pity us 
than we her. I hope, and beg, you will support your- 
self with that resignation we owe to Him, who gave 
us our being for our good, and who deprives us of it 
for the same reason. I would have come to you di- . 
rectly, but you do not say whether 'you desire I 
should or not ; if you do, I beg I may know it, for 
there is nothing to hinder me, and I am in very good 
health, 

LU. 

TO MR. WALPOLE. 

Stoke, June 12, 17S0. 
As I live in a place, where even the ordinary tattle 
of the town arrives not till it is stale, and which pro- 
duces no events of its ov^^n, you will not desire any 
excuse from me for writing so seldom, especially as 
of all people living I know you are the least a friend 
to letters spun out of one's own brains, with all the 
toil and constraint that accompanies sentimental pro- 
ductions. I have been here at Stoke a few days 
(where I shall continue good part of the summer ;) 
and having put an end to a thing, whose beginning 
you have seen long ago. I immediately send it you* 

* This was the iElegy in the «Jiurchyard --B' 



144 GRAY'S LETTERS. ' 

You will, I hope, look upon it in the light of a thing 
with an end to it ; a merit that most of my writings 
have wanted, and are like to want, but which this 
epistle I am determined shall not want, when it tells 
you that I am ever 

Yours. 

Not that I have done yet ; but who could avoid 
the temptation of finishing so roundly and so clever- 
ly in the manner of good queen Anne's days ? Now 
I have talked of writings ; I have seen a book, which 
is by this time in the press, against Middleton 
(though without naming him,) by A '~^*on. As far 
as I can judge from a very hasty'''^ eading, there are 
things in it new and ingenious, but rather too prolix, 
and the style here and there savouring too strongly 
of sermon. I imagine it will do him credit. So 
much for other people, now to self again. You are 
desired to tell me your opinion, if you can take the 
pains, of these lines. I am once more 

Ever yours- 



POEMS 



OF 



THOMAS GRAY. 



ODES. 



ODE I. 
"N THE SPRING. 

Lo ! where the rosy-bosomed hours, 

Fair Venus' train, appear, 
Disclose the long-expecting flowers, 

And wake the purple year, 
The attic warbler pours her throat 
Responsive to the cuckoo's note, 

The untaught harmony of spring, 
While, whispering pleasure as they fly, 
Cool zephyrs through the clear blue sky 

Their gathered fragrance fling. 

Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch 

A broader, browner shade, 
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech 

O'er-canopies the glade.* 



-a bank 



Cer-canopied with luscious woodbine. 

Shahsp, Mid. Ortam^ 

N 



145 GRAY'S POEMS. 

Beside some water's rushy brink 
With me the Muse shall sit, and think 

(At ease reclined in rustic state) 
How vain the ardour of the crowd, 
How low, how little, are the proud. 

How indigent the great 

Still is the toiling hand of Care, 

The panting herds repose, 
Yet hark ! how through the peopled air 

The busy murmur glows ! 
The insect youth are on the wing, 
Eager to taste the honeyed spring, 

And float amid the liquid noon ;* 
Some lightly o'er the current skim^ 
Some show their gayly-gilded trim, 

Quick-glancing to the sun.t 

To contemplation's sober eye,! 

Such is the race of man, 
And they that creep and they that fly 

Shall end where they began. 
Alike the busy and the gay 
But flutter through life's little day, 

* Nare per aestatem liquidam. Vh-g. Gcorg. lib. 4. 

t sporting with quick glance, 

Show to the sun their waved coats dropt with gold. 

Milton's Pcvt-adise Lost, o. 7. 
\ While insects from the threshold preach, &c. 
3Ir. Green in the Grotto. Dodsley^s Miscellanies, vol. \.p. iSl 



GRAY'S POEMS. 147 

In fortune's varying colours drest ; 
Brushed by the hand of rough Mischance, 
Or chilled by Age, their airy dance 

Thejj leave, in dust to rest. 

Methinks I hear, in accents low, 

The sportive kind reply, 
Poor Moralist ! and what art thou ? 

A solitary fly ! 
Thy joys no glittering female meets, 
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets, 

No painted plumage to display j 
On hasty wings thy youth is flown, 
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone-— 

We trolic while 'tis May. 



ODE II. 



ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT, 

Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes. 

TwAS on a lofty vase's side, 
Where China's gayest art had died 

The azure flowers that blow, 
Demurest of the tabby kind, 
The pensive Selima, reclined, 

Ga^ed on the lake below. 



14S GRAY'S POEMS. 

Her conscious tail her joy declared j 
The fair round face, the snowy beard? 

The velvet of her paws, 
Her coat that with the tortoise vies, 
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, 

She saw, and purred applause. 

Still had she gazed, but, 'midst the tide, 
Two angel forms were seen to glide, 

The Genii of the stream ; 
Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue, 
Through richest purple, to the view 

Betrayed a golden gleam. 

The hapless nymph with wonder saw ; 
A whisker first, and then a claw, 

With many an ardent wish. 
She stretched in vain to reach the prize : 
What female heart can gold despise .'' 

What Cat's averse to fish ? 

Presumptuous maid ! with looks intent, 
Again she stretched, again she bent, 

Nor knew the gulf between : 
(Malignant Fate sat by and smiled,) 
The slippery verge her feet beguiled ; 

She tumbled headlong in. 

Eight times emerging from the flood, 
She mewed to every watery g^od 



GRAY'S POEMS, 149 



Some speedy aid to send. 
No Delphi Q came, no Nereid stirred, 
Nor cruel Tom or Susan heard : 

A fayirile has no friend ! 

From hence, ye Beauties ! undeceived, 
Know one false step is ne'er retrieved, 

And be with caution bold : 
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes 
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize,. 

Nor all that glistens gold. 



ODE III. 

ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGi:. 

Ye distant Spires ! ye antique Towers ! 

That crown the watery glade 
Where grateful Science still adores 

Her Henry's* holy shade ; 
And ye that from the stately brow 
Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below 

Of grove, of lawn, of mead, survey, 
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among 
Wanders the hoary Thames along 

His silver-winding way : 

* King Henry VL founder of the College. 

N 2 



15® CRAY'S POEMS. 

Ah happy hills ! ah pleasing shade ! 

Ah fields beloved in vain ! 
Where once my careless childhood strayedj 

A stranger yet to pain ! 
I feel the gales that from ye blow 
A momentary bliss bestow, 

As waving fresh their gladsome wing 
My weary soul they seem to sooth, 
And, redolent* of joy and youth, 

To breathe a second spring. 

Say, father Thames ! for thOu hast se6n 

Full many a sprightly race, 
Disporting on thy margent green. 

The paths of pleasure trace. 
Who foremost now delight to cleave 
With pliant arm thy glassy wave ? 

The captive linnet which enthral ? ^ 
What idle progeny succeed 
To chase the rolling circle's speed, 

Or urge the flying ball ? 

While some, on earnest business bent. 

Their murmuring labours ply 
^Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint) 

To sweeten liberty ; 



And bees their honey redolent of spring. 

Dryden's Fable on the Fythag. System^ 



GRAY'S POExMS. 151 

Some bold adventurers disdain 
The limits of their little reign, 

And unknown regions dare descry ; 
Still MS they run they look behind, 
They hear a voice in every wind, 
, And snatch a fearful joy. 

Gay hope is theirs, by fancy fed, 

Less pleasing when possest ; 
The tear forgot as soon as shed, « 

The sunshine of the breast ; 
Their buxom health of rosy hue, 
Wild wit, invention ever new, 

And lively cheer of vigour born ; 
The thoughtless day, the easy night. 
The spirits pure, the slumbers light, 

That fly tli' approach of morn. 

Alas ! regardless of their doom, 

The little victims play ! 
No sense have they of ills to come, 

Nor care beyond to-day : 
Yet see how all arovmd 'em wait 
The ministers of human fate, 

And black Misfortune's baleful train ! 
Ah ! show them where in ambush stand, 
To seize their prey, the murderous band ! 

Ah ! tell them thev are men. 



152 GRAY'S POEMS. 

These shall the fury passions tear, 

The vultures of the mind ; 
Disdainful anger, pallid fear, 

And shame that sculks behind ; 
Or pining love shall waste their youth, 
Or jealousy, with rankling tooth, 

That inly gnaws the secret heart j 
And envy wan, and faded care, 
Grim-visaged, comfortless despair, 

And sorrow's piercing dart. 

Ambition this shall tempt to rise, 

Then whirl the wretch from high, 
To bitter scorn a sacrifice, 

And grinning infamy : 
The stings of falsehood those shall try, 
And hard unkindness' altered eye, 

That mocks the tear it forced to flow ', 
And keen remorse, with blood defiled. 
And moody madness* laughing wild 

Amid severest wo. 

Lo ! in the vale of years beneath 

A grisly troop are seen. 
The painful family of death. 

More hideous than their queen : 
This racks the joints, this fires the veins, 
That every lab'ring sinew strains, 



And Madness laughing in his ireful mood. 

Di-y den's Fable of Palamon and Arcite~ 



GRAY'S POEMS. 15^ 

Those in the deeper vitals rage ; 
Lo ! poverty to fill the band, 
That numbs the soul with icy hand, 

And^low-consuming age. 

To each his sufferings ; all are men 

Condemned alike to groan. 
The tender for another's pain, 

Th' unfeeling for his own. 
Yet ah ! why should they know their fate. 
Since sorrow never comes too late, 

And happiness too swiftly flies .'' 
Thought would destroy their paradise. 
No more ; where ignoranc'e is bliss 

'Tis folly to be wise. 



ODE IV. 



TO ADVERSITY. 



Daughter of Jove, relentless power, 
Thou tamer of the human breast, 

Whose iron scourge and torturing hour 
The bad affright, afflict the best ! 

Bound in thy adamantine chain, 

The proud are taught to taste of pain, 

And purple tyrants vainly groan 

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. 



154 GRAY'S POEMS. 

When first thy sire to send on earth 

Virtue, his darhng child, designed; 
To thee he gave the heavenly birth, 

And bade to form her infant mind ; 
Stern rugged nurse ! thy rigid lore 
Wilh patience many a year she bore : 
What sorrow was thou bad'st her know, 
And from her own she learned to melt at others' wo 

Scared at thy frown terrific fly 

Seif-pleasing folly's idle brood, 
Wild .'aifihter, noise and though ties joy, 

And leave us leisure to be good. 
Light they disperse ; and with them go 
The summer friend, the flattering foe ; 
By vain prosperity received, 
To her they vow their truth, and are again believed. 

Wisdom, in sable garb arrayed, 

Immersed in rapl'rous thought profound, 

And melancholy, silent maid, 

With leaden eye, that loves the ground, 

Still on thy solemn steps attend ; 

Warm charity, the general friend, 

With justice, to herself severe, 

And pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear 

Oh ! gently on thy suppliant's head, 

Dread goddess ! lay thy chastening hand. 

Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, 

Nor circled with the vengeful band *, 



GRAY'S POEMS. 15S 

(As by the impious thou art seen,) 
With thundering voice and threatening raien, 
With screaming horror's funeral cry, 
Despair, and fell disease, and ghastly poverty. 

Thy form benign, O Goddess ! wear, 

Thy milder influence impart, 
Thy philosophic train be there. 

To soften, not to wound, my heart : 
The generous spark extinct revive ; 
Teach me to love and to forgive ; 
Exact my own defects to scan. 
What others are to feel, and know myself a mais. 



ODE V. 

THE PROGRESS OF POESY. — PINDARIC. 

Jidvertisement. 

When the Author first published this and the following Ode, he 
was advised, even by his friends, to subjoin some few ex- 
planatory notes, but had too much respect for the understand- 
ing of his readers to take that liberty. 

I. 1. 
Awake, ^J^olian lyre ! awake,* 
And give to rapture all thy trembling strings ; 
From Helicon's harmonious springs 
A thousand rills their mazy progress take ,: 

* Awcilie, my glory '. awake, kite and harp- 

David^s Paaimf, 
Pindar styles his own poetry, with its musical accompaniments, 
^olian song, ^oUan strings, the breath of the .ffiollan .lutf. 



356 GRAY'S POEMS. 

The laughing flowers, that round them blow, 

Drink life and fragrance as they flow. 

Now the rich stream of music winds along 

Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong. 

Through verdant vales and Ceres' golden reign f 

Now rolling down the steep amain, 

Headlong, impetuous, see it pour ; 

The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar. 

I. 2. 
Oh sovereign* of the willing soul, 
Parent of sweet and solemn- breathing airs, 
Enchanting shell ! the sullen cares 
And frantic passions hear thy soft control. 
On rhracia's hills the lord of war 
Has curbed the fury of his car, 
And dropped his thirsty lance at thy command : 
Perching on the sceptred handt 
Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feathered king 
With ruffled plumes and flagging wing ; 
Quenched in dark clouds of slumber lie 
The terror of his beak and lightenings of his eye. 

The subject and simile, as usual with Pindar, are here united. 
The various sources of poetry, which gives life and lustre to all 
it touches, are here described, as well in its quiet majestic pro- 
gress, enriching every subject (otherwise dry and barren) with 
all the pomp of diction, and luxuriant harmony of numbers, as 
in its more rapid and irresistible course when swollen and hur- 
ried away by the conflict of tumultuous passions. 

* Power of harmony to cal;n the turbulent passions of the soul. 
The thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar. 

t This is a weak imitation of some beautiful lines in the same 
ode. 



GRAY'S POEMS. 15T 

I. 3. 
Thee* the voice, the dance obey, 
Tempdf-ed to thy warbled lay : 
O'er Idalia's velvet green 

The rosy-crowned loves are seen, 

On Cytherea's day, 

With antic sports and blue-eyed pleasures 

Frisking light in frolic measures : 

Now pursuing, now retreating, 

Now in circling troops they meet ; 

To brisk notes in cadence beating 

Glance their many-twinkling feet. 

Slow-melting strains their queen's approach declare j 

Where'er she turns the graces homage pay : 

With arms sublime, that float upon the air, 

In gliding state she wins her easy way ; 

O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move 

The bloom of young desire and purple light of love. 

II. 1. 
Man's feeble race what ills await !t 
Labour and penury, the racks of pain, 
Disease, and sorrow's weeping train, 

And death, sad refuge from the storms of fate ! 

* Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in 
the body. 

t To compensate the real or imaginary ills of life, the muse 
was given to mankind by the same Providence that sends the 
day liy its cheerful presence to dispel the g'loom and terrors ol' 
the night. 

O 



158 GRAY'S POEMS, 

The fond complaint, my song ! disprove. 

And justify the laws of Jove. 

Say, has he given in vain the heavenly muse r 

Night and ail her sickly dews, 

Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, 

He gives to range the dreary sky, 

Till down the eastern cliffs afar* [war. 

Hyperion's march they spy and glittering shafts of 

11.2. 

In climes t beyond the solar road,|: 

Where shaggy forms oer ice-built mountains roam? 

The muse has broke the twilight-gloom 

To cheer the shivering naisve's dull abode: 

And oft beneath the odorous shade 

Of Ctiili's boundless forests laid, 

She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat, 

In loose numbers; wildly sweet, 

Their feather-cinctured chiefs and dusky loves. 

Her track, where'er the goddess roves, 

Glory pursue, and generous shame, 

The unconquerable mind and freedom's holy flame. 

* Or seen the morning's well-appointed star, 
Come inarc'unif up tiie eastern hills afar. Cowley. 
t Extensive influence of poetic genius over the remotest and 
most uncivilized nations ; its connexion? with liberty, and the 
virtues that naturally attend on it, (See the Erse, Norwegian, 
and Welsh Fragments, the Lapland and American Songs, &.c.) 
J Extra anni solisque vias. Virgil, 
Tritta lontana dal camin del sole. Petrarch, Cam, 2. 



©RAY'S POEMS. 15^ 

II. 3. 
Woods that wave o'er Delphi's steep,* 
Isles that crown the iEarean deep, 
Fields that cool Iliissus laves, 
Or where Mseander's amber waves 
In lingering lab'rinths creep. 
How do your tuneful echoes languish^ 
Mute but to the voice of anguish ? 
Where each old poetic mountain 
Inspiration breathed around, 
Every shade and hallowed fountain 
Murmured deep a solemn sound, 
Till the sad nine, in Greece's evil hour, 
Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains : 
Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant power 
And coward vice, that revels in her chams, 
When Latium had her lofty spirit lost, 
They sought, oh, Albion ! next thy sea-encircled coast. 

III. 1. 
Far from the sun and summer gale, 
In thy green lap was nature's dariingt laid, 
What time; where lucid Avon strayed 
To him the mighty mother did unveil 

P * Progress of poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to 
England. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of 
Dante or of Petrarch. The Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas 
Wyatt had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste there ; 
Spencer imitated the Italian writers, Milton improved on them: 
but this school expu-ed soon after the restoiation, and a new ovie, 
arose on the French model, which has subsisted ever since, 
-t Shakspeare. _, 



16© (jJRAY'S POEMS. 

Her awful face ; the dauntless child 

Stretched forth his little arms, and smiled.. 

This pencil take (she said) whose colours clear 

Richly paint the vernal year ; 

Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy ! 

This can unlock the gates of joy ; 

Of horror that, and thrilling fears, 

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears. 

IIL 2. 
Nor second he* that rode sublime 
Upon the seraph-wings of ecstacy, 
The secrets of th' abyss to spy, 
He passed the flaming bounds of place and time :t 
The living throne, the sapphire-blaze,t 
Where angels tremble while they gare, 
He saw, but, blasted with excess of light, 
Closed his eyes in endless night. 
Behold where Dryden's less presumptuous car 
Wide o'er the fields of glory bear 
Two coursers of ethereal race,§ [pacfc. 

With necks in thunder clothedH and long resounding 

* Milton. 

t flammantia moenia mundi. lAieretius. 

\ For the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels 
And above the firmament, that was over their heads, was the 
likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone.^— 

TUs was the appearance of the glory of the Lord. 

EzeUel i. 20, 26, 23. 

§ Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of 
Dryden's rhymes. 

ff Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder .' Joib. 



(SKAT'S POEMS, 161 



1 in. 3. 

flark ! his hands the lyre explore ! 

Brjght^3^ed fancy, hovering o'er, 

Scatters from her pictured urn 

Thoughts that breathe and words that burn f 

But ah ' 'tis heard no raoret — 

Oh, Ij're divine ! what daring spirit 

Wakes thee now ? though he inherit 
1^ Nor the pride nor ample pinion 
J That the Theban eagle bear,t 

Sailing with supreme dominion 

Through the azure deep of air, 

Yet oft before his infant eyes would run 

Such forms as glitter in the muse's ray 

With orient hues, unborrowed of the sun ; 

Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way 

Bpyorsd the limits of a vulgar fafe, 

Beneath the good how far — but far above the ereat. 



* Words tliatweep fiiul fears that speak. Cotvley, 

r We have had in our lansruage no oUier odes of the subliMe 
kind tiian that of Drvden on St. Cecilia's day 5 for Cowley, who 
had his mei'it, yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony, for 
such a task. That of Pope is not worthy of so great a man. 
Mr. iVlason, indeed, of late days, has touched the true chords, 
and, with a masterly hand, in some of his chorusses— above all, 
in the last of Caractacus , 

Hark ! heard ye not yon footstep dread ? &c. 

J Pindar compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to 
ravens that croak and clamour in vain below, while it pursuiBS 
its tlig-ht regardless of their noise. 
O 2 



162 GRAY'S POEMS, 



ODE VI. 



THE BARD. — PINDARIC. 



Advertisement. 



The following Ode is founded on a tradition current in Wales, 
that Edward I. when he completed the conquest of that coun- 
try, ordered all the bai'ds that fell into his hands to be put to 
death. 



I. 1. 

" Ruin seize thee, ruthless king ! 
Confusion on thy banners wait ; 
Though fanned by conquest's crimson wing, 
They mock the air with idle state.*' 
Helm nor hauberk'st twisted mail, 
Nor e'en thy virtues, tyrant ! shall avail 
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears ; 
From Cambria's r urse, from Cambria's tears !" 
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pridc-j 
Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay, 
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side§ 
He wound with toilsome march his long array. 

* Modiing the air with colours idly spread. 

Shaksp. Kin^ John. 

t The hauberk was a texture of steel ringlets or rings inter- 
woven, forming a coat of mail that sat close to the bodj, and 
adapted itself to every motion. 

f The crested adder's pride. Dryden's Indian Quee^i, 

§ Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that moun- 
tainous track which the Welsh themselves call Craigian-eryri : 



GRAYS POEMS. 163 

Stout Glo'ster^ stood aghast in speechless trance : 
To arm^ cried Mortimer,! and couched his quivering 
lance. 

I. 2. 
On a rock, whose haughty brow 
Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood; 
Robed in the sable garb of wo, 
With haggard eyes the poet stood j 
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair^ 
Streamed like a meteor to the troubled air,§) 
And with a master's hand and prophet's fire 
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre. 
*' Hark how each giant oak and desert cave 
Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath ! 
O'er thee, oh king! their hundred arms they wave, 
Revenge on thqe in hoarser murmurs breathe ; 

tl^included all tlie l^iglilaiads of Caernarvonshire and Merio- 
nethshire, as far east as the river Conway. R.Hygden, speak- 
ing of the castle of Conway, built by king Edward I. says, 
Ardortuyn amnis Conxuay ad dtivum montis Erery ; and Matthew 
of Westminster, (ad an. 1285) Apud Aberconway ad pedes montis 
Snoxudonia fecit erigi casti^wm forte. •» 

* Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, earl of Gloucester and 
Hertford, son-in-law to kin^ Edward. 

t Edmond de Jlortimer, lord of Wig^more. They both were 
lor'^ls Marchers, whose lands lay on the borders of Wales, and 
probably accompanied the king in this expedition. 

I The image was taken from a well-known picture of Raphael, 
representing ^iae Supreme Being in the vision of Ezekiel. 
There are two of these paintings, both believed original ; one 
at Florence, the other at Paris- 

§ Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind. 

Milton's Paradise Lost. 



164 GRAY'S POEMS. 

Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day, 

To highborn Hoel's harp or soft Llewellyn's lay 

I. 3. 
" Cold is Cadwallo's tongue, 
That hushed the stormy main ; 
Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed : 
Mountains ! ye mourn in vain 
Modred, whose magic song 

Made huge Plinliramon bow his cloud-topped head. 
On dreary Arvon's* shore they lie, 
Smeared with gore and ghastly pale ; 
Far, far aloof the affrighted ravens sail, 
The famished eaglet screams and passes by. 
Dear lost companions of my tuneful art, 
Dear| as the light that visits these sad eyes. 
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart. 

Ye died amidst your dying country's cries 

No more I weep. They do not sleep : 

*The shores of Caernarvonshire,* opposite to the isle of An- 
glesey. 

t Camden and others observe, that eagles used anmiaiJy to 
build their aerie among the rocks of Snowdon, whi(\h from 
thence (as some think) were named, by the Welsh, Craigian- 
eryri, or the Crags of the Eagles. At this day (I am told) the 
highest point of Snowdon is cailed Tlie Eagle's Nest. That 
bird is certainly no stranger to this island, as the Scots, and the 
people of Cumberland, Westmoreland, &c. can testify: it even 
has built its nest in the Peak of Derbyshire. [See }Filloughby'$ 
Ornithol. published by Ray.] 

X As dear to me as are the ruddj' drops 1 

That visit my sad heart. Shaksp. Julius Caiar, 



GRAY S POEMS, 165 

Oa yonder cliffs, a grisly band, 

I see them sit ; they linger yet, 

Avengers of their native land ; 

With ige in dreadful harmony they join. 

And weave* with bloody hands the tissue of thy line." 

II. 1. 
' Weave the warp and weave the woof, 
The winding-sheet of Edward's race j 
Give ample room and verge enough 
The characters of hell to trace. 
Itjark. the year and mark the night 
When Severn shall re-echo with affright 
The shrieks of death through Berkley's roofs that ring, 
Shrieks of an agonizing king !t 
She-wolf of France,! with unrelenting fangs 
That tearest the bowels of thy mangled mate. 
From thee§ be born who o'er thy country hangs 
The scourge of heaven. What terrors round him 
Amazement in his van, with flight combined, [wait ! 
And sorrow's faded form, and solitude behind. 

II. 2. 
* Mighty victor, mighty lord. 
Low on his funeral couch he lies !|j 
No pitying heart, no eye, afford 
A tear to grace his obsequies ! 

* See the Norwegian Ode that follows, 
t Edward II. cruelly butchered in Berkley Castle. 
t Isabel of France, Edward II.'s adulterous queen. 
§ Triumphs of Edward III. in France. 

B Dea<h of that king, abandoned by his children, and evea 
robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and mistress. 



166 GRAY'S POEMS. 1 

Is the sable warrior* fled ? 

Thy son, is gone ; he rests among- the dead. ' 

The swarm that in thy noontide beam were bora, 

Gone to salute the rising morn : 

Fair laughs the morn,t and soft the zephyr blows. 

While proudly riding o'er the azure realm, 

In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes, 

Youth on the prow and pleasure at the helm, 

Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, 

That hushed in grim repose expects his evening prey. 

U.S. 

' Fill high the sparkling bowljt 

The rich repast prepare } 

Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast. 

Close by the regal chair 

Fell thirst and famine scowl 

A baleful smile upon the baffled guest. 

Heard ye the din of battle bray,§ 

Lance to lance arid horse to horse .'' 

Long years of havoc urge their destined course, 

And through the kindred squadrons mow their way. 



* Edward the Black Prince, dead some time before his father. 

t Magnificence of Richard II's. reign. See Froissard, and 
other contemporary writers. 

J llichard 11. (as we are told by Archbishop Scroop, and the 
confede)ate lords, in their manifesto, by Thomas of Walsing- 
ham. and all the older writers) was starved to death. The story 
of his assassination by Sir Piers of Exon is of much later date. 

§ Ruinous civil wars of York and Lancaster. 



GRAY'S POEMS. 167 

Ye towers of Julius !* London's lasting shame, 

With many a foul and midnight murder fed,; 

Revere Jiis consort's t faith, his father's^ fame, 

And spare the meek usurper's§ holy head. 

Above, below, the rose of snow,|l 

Twined with her blushing foe, we spread ; 

The bristled BoarH in infant gore 

Wallows beneath the thorny shade. 

Now, brothers' ! bending o'er th' accursed loom, 

Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom. 

III. 1. 
* Edward, lo ! to sudden fate 
(Weave we the woof; the thread is spun) 
Half of thy heart** we consecrate ; 
(The web is wove ; the work is done.') 
" Stay, oh stay ! nor thus foriorn 

* Henry VI. George Duke of Clarence, Edward V. Richard 
Duke of York, &c. believed to be murdered secretly in the 
Tower of London. The oldest psut of that structure is vulgai*- 
ly attributed to Julius Caesar. 

t Margaret of Anjou, a woman of heroic spirit, who struggled 
hard to save her husband and her crown. 

+ Henry V. 

§ Henry VI. very near being canonized. The Kne of Lan- 
caster had no right of inheritance to the crown. 

II The white and red Roses, devices of York and Lancaster. 

TTThe silver Boar was the badge of Ridiard III. whence he 
was usually known in his own time by the name of The Boar. 

** Eleanor of Castile died a few years after the conquest of 
Wales. The heroic proof she gave of her affection for her lord 
is well known. The monuments of his regret and sorrow for 
the loss of her are still to be seen at Northampton, Gaddington,. 
Waltham, and other places. 



168 GRAY'S POEMS. 

Leave me unblessed, nnpitied, here to mourn. 

In yon bright track, that fires the western skies, 

They melt, they vanish from my eyes. 

But oh ! what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height, 

Descending slow, their glitterino: skirts unroll ! 

Visions of glory ! spare my aching sight, 

Ye unborn ages crowd not on my soul ! 

No more our long-lost Arthur* we bewail : 

All hail, ye genuine kings ;i Britannia's issue, hail 

III. 2. 
« Girt with many a baron bold 
Sublime their starry fronts they rear, 
And gorgeous dames and statesmen old 
In bearded majestv appear j 
in the mid>!t a form divine, 
Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-line, 
Her lion-port, tier awe-commanding face,t 
Attempered sweet to virgin-grace. 



* It was the common belief of the Welsh nation, that king 
Arthur was still alive in Faiiyland, and should return again to 
reign over Britain. 

t Both Merlin and Taliessin had prophesied that the Welsh 
should regain their sovereignty over this island, which seemed 
to be accomplished in the house of Tudor. 

t Speed, relating an audience given by queen Elizabeth to 
Paul Dzialinski, ambassador of Poland, says, " And thus she, 
lion-like rising, daunted the malapert orator no Its'; with her 
stately port and majestical deporture, than with the tartness oC 
her princelie cheekes." 



GRAY'S POEMS. IGi^ 

What strings symphonious tremble in the air I 
What strains of vocal transport round her play ! 
Hear from the grave, great Taliessin !* hear ! 
They breathe a soul to animate thy clay. 
Bright rapture calls, and, soaring as she sings, 
Waves in the eye of heaven her many-coloured wings. 

III. 3. 
" The verse adorn again 
Fierce war, and faithful love,t 
And truth severe, by fairy fiction drest. 
In buskined measures move|: 
Pale grief, and pleasing pain, 
With horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. 
A voice§ as of the cherub-choir 
Gales from blooming Eden bear, 
And distant warblingsjl lessen on my ear. 
That lost in long futurity expire. [cloud. 

Fond impious man! thinkest thou yon sanguine 
Raised by thy breath, has quenched the orb of day .'' 
To-morrow he repairs the golden flood, 
And warms the nations with redoubled ray. 

* Taliessin, tht^chief of the bards, flourished In the 6th centu- 
ry. His works are still preserved, and his memory held in high 
veneration, among his counti-ymen. 
t Fierce wars and faithful loves shall moralize my song. 

Spencer's Potm to The Fairy Qtteew. 
X Shakspeare. 
§ Milton. 

!l The succession of poets after Milton's time. 
P 



i?0 GRAY'S POEMS, 

Enough for me : with joy I see 

The different doom our fates assigm : 

Be thine despair and sceptred care ; 

To triumph and to die are mine." 

He spoke, and- headlong from the mountain's height, 

Deep in the roaring tide, he plunged to endless night» 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

Thb Author once had thoughts (iu concert with a friend) 
of giving a history of English poetty. In the introduc- 
tion to it he meant to have produced some specimens of 
the style that reigned in ar cient times among the neigh- 
bouring nations, or those who had subdued the greater 
part of this island, and were our progenitors : the follow- 
ing three imitations made a part of them. He after- 
wards dropped his design ; especially after he had heard 
that it was already in the hands of a person we!) qaalifi- 
ed to do it justice both by his taste and his researches into 
antiquity. 



GRAY'S POEMS. 113 

ODE VII. 
THE FATAL SISTERS. 

From the Norse tongue. ' 

To he found in the Orcades of Thermodus TorftBUS, 
Hafnice, 1679, folio; and also in Bartholinus. 
Vitt er orpit fyrir Valfalli, S^c. 

PREFACE. 

In the 11th century, Sigurd, earl of the Orkney isl- 
ands, went with a fleet of ships, and a considerable 
body of troops, into Ireland, to the assistance of 
Sigtryg with the silken Beard, who. was then mak- 
ing war on his father-in-law, Brian, king of Dublin. 
The earl and all his forces were cut to pieces, and 
Sigtryg was in. danger of a total defeat ; but the 
enemy had a greater loss by the death of Brian, 
their king, wha» fell in the action. On Christmas- 
day (the day of the battle) a native of Caithness, in 
Scotland, saw, at a distance, a iiumber of persons 
on horseback riding full speed towards a hill, and 
seeming to enter into it. Curiosity led him to follow 
them, till, looking through an openuig in the rock, 
he saw twelve gigantic figures, lesembling women : 
they wei*e all employed about a loom ; and as they 
wove, they sung the following dreadful song, which, 
P 2 



174 GRAY'S POEMS. 

when they had finished, they tore the web into twelve 
pieces, and each taking- her portion, galloped six to 
the north, and as many to the south. 

Now the storm begins to lower, 

(Haste, the loom of hell prepare,) 
Jron-sleet of arrowy shower* 

Hurtlest in the darkeiied air. 

Glitterijag lances are the loom 

Where the dusky warp we strain, 
Weaving many a soldier's doom, 

Orkney's wo and Randver's bane. 

See the grisly texture grow, 

('Tis of human entrails made,) 
And the weights that play below 

Each a gasping warrior's head. 

Shafts for shuttles, dipt in gore. 

Shoot the trembling cords along : 
Sword, that once a monarch bore, 

Keep the tissue close and strong. 

Note. — The Valkyriur were female divinities, servants of 
Odin (or Wodin) in the Gothic mythology. Their name sigiai- 
lies choosers of the slain. They were mounted on swift hoi'ses, 
with drawn swords in their hands, and in the throng of battle 
selected such as were destined to slaughter, and conducted them 
to Valkalla, (the hall of Odin, or paradise of the brave,) where 
they attended the banquet, and served the departed heroes with 
horns of mead and ale. 

* How quick they wheeled, and flying, behind them shot 
Sharp sleet of arrowy shower. Milt. Par. Reg. 

I The noise of battle hurtled in the air. Shak, Jvi. Ccer. 



GRAY'S POEMS. 175 

Mistaj black terrific maid ! 

Sang'rida and Hilda see, 
Join the wayward work to aid ; 

'Tis flie woof of victory. 

Ere the ruddy sun be set 

Pikes must shiver, javelins sing-, 
Blade with clattering buckler meet, 

Hauberk crash, and helmet ring. 

(Weave the crimson web of war) 

Let us g'o, and let us fly, 
Where our friends the conflict share, 

Where they triumph, where they die. 

As the paths of fate we tread, 
W^ading through the ensanguined field, 

Gondulaand Geira spread 

O'er the youthful king your shield. 

We the reins to slaughter give, 

Ours to kill and ours to spare : 
Spite of danger he shall live ; 

(Weave the crimson web of war.) 

They whom once the desert beach 

Pent within it's bleak domain, 
Soon their ample sway shall stretch 

O'er the plenty of the plain. 



176 GRAY'S POEMS. 

Low the dauntless earl is laid, 

Gored with many a gaping wound ; 

Fate demands a nobler head ; 

Soon a king shall bite the ground. 

iiong his loss shall Erin* weep, 
jVe'er again his likeness see ; 

Long her strains in sorrow steep. 
Strains of immortality ! 

Horror covers all the heath, 
Clouds of carnage blot the sun : 

Sisters ! weave the web of death : 
Sisters ! cease the work is done. 

Hail the task and hail the hands ! 

Songs of joy and triumph sing j 
joy to the victorious bands, 

Triumph to the younger king. 

Mortal ! thou that hear'st the tale 
Learn the tenour of our song ; 

Scotland through each winding vale 
Far and wide the notes prolong. 

Sisters ! hence with spurs of speed ; 

Each her thundering falchion wield j 
Each bestride her sable steed : 

Hurry, hurry to the field, 

* Ireland. 



GRAY'S POEMS. m 

ODE viir. 

- THE DESCENT OF ODIN. 

From the Norse Tongue. 

To be found in BarfhoUnus, decausis contetnnendte 
mortis Hasni^^ 1689, Quarto 

Upreis Odinn AUda gautr, ke* 

Up rose the king of men with speed, 
And saddled straight his coal-black steed ; 
Down the yawning steep he rode 
That leads to Hela's* drear abode. 
Him the dog of darkness spied ; 
His shaggy throat he opened wide, 
While from his jaws, with carnage iilled} 
Foam and human gore distilled : 
Hoarse he brays with hideous din, 
Eyes that glow and fangs that grin, 
And long pursues with fruitless yell 
The father of the powerful spell. 
Onward still his way he takes, 
(Tlie groaning earth beneath him shakes,) 
Till full before his fearless eyes 
The portals nine of hell arise. 

* Niflheimr, the hell of the Gothic nations, consisted of nine 
worlds, to which were devoted all such as died of sickness, old 
age, or by any other means than in battle ; over it presided Hela> 
the g-oddess of Death. 



178 GRAY'S POEMS. 

Right against the eastern gate, 
By the moss-grown pile he sate, 
Where long of yore to sleep was laid 
The dust of the prophetic maid. 
Facing to Ihe northern clime, 
Thrice he traced the Runic rhyme', 
Thrice pronounced, in accents dread, 
The thrilling verse that wakes the dead, 
Till ti om out the hollow ground 
Slowly bi eathed a sullen sound. 

Proph. What call unknown, what charms presume 
To break the quiet ot the toinb .'' 
Who thus afflicts my troubled sprite, 
And drags me from the realms of night ? 
Long on these mouldermg bones have beat 
The iviuter's snows the summer's heat^ 
The drenching dews and driving rain ! 
Let me^ let me sleep again. 
Who is he, with voice unblest, 
That calls me from the bed of rest ? 
I Odin. A traveller, to thee unknown, 
Is he that calls, a warrior's son. 
Thou the deeds of light shalt know j 
Tell me what is done below. 
For whom yon glitfering board is spread, 
Drest for whom yon golden bed ? 

Proph. Mantling in the goblet see 
The pure beverage of the bee. 
O'er it hangs the shield of gold ; 
'lis the drink of Balder bold : 



GRAY'S POEMS. 179 

Balder's head to death is givea ; 
Pain can reach the sons of Heaven ! 
Unwilling' 1 my Ups unclose : 
Leave me, leave me to repose. 

Odin. Once again aiy call obey : 
Prophetess arise, and say, 
What dangers Odin's child await, 
Who the author of his fate .'' 

Proph. In Hoder's hand the hero's doom; 
His brother sends him to the tomb. 
Now my weary lips I close ; 
Leave me, leave me to repose. 

Odin. Prophetess ! my spell obey ; 
Once again arise, and say, 
Who the avenger of his guilt. 
By whom shall Hoder's blood be spilt ? 

Proph. In the caverns of the west, 
By Odin's fierce embrace comprest, 
A wonderous boy shall Rinda bear, 
Who ne'er shall comb his raven hair, 
Nor wash his visage in the stream, 
Nor see the sun's departing beam, 
Till he on Hoder's corse shall smile 
Flaming on the funeral pile. 
Now my weary lips I close ; 
Leave me, leave me to repose. 

Odin. Yet a while my call obej' :. 
Prophetess ! awake, and say, 
What virgins these, in speechless wo. 
That bend to earth their solemn brow. 



180 GRAY'S POEMS, 

That their flaxen tresses tear, 
And snowy veils that float in air ? 
Tell me whence their sorrows rose. 
Then I leave thee to repose. 

Proph. Ha ! no traveller art thou ; 
King of men I know thee now ; 
Mightiest of a mighty line 

Odin. No boding maid of skill divine 
Art thou no prophetess of good. 
But mother of the giant-brood ! 

Proph, Hie thee hence, and boast at homC; 
That never shall inquirer come 
To break my iron-sleep again 
Till Lok* has burst his tenfold chain ; 
Never till substantial night 
Has re- assumed her ancient right, 
Till wrapped in flames, in ruin hurled, 
Sinks the fabric of the world. 

* Lok is the evil being, who continues in chains till the ttvi- 
light of the gods approaches, when he shall break his bonds ; 
the human race, the stars, the sun, shall disappear, the eaith 
sink in the seas, and tire consume the skies ; even Odin himself, 
and his kindred deities, shall perish. For a farther explanation 
of this mythology, see Introduction a V Histoire de Danemarc, 
par Mons. MaUat, 1 755, 4to ; or rather a translation of it pub- 
lished in 1770, and entitled Northern Antiquities, in which some 
imstakes in the original are judiciously corrected. 



GRAY'S POEMS 181 

ODE IX. 

THE TRIUMPH OF OWEN: 

A Fragment. 

From Mr. Evan's specimen of the Welsh poetri/, Lon* 
doHj 1764, Quarto. 

ADVERTISEMENT. 

OWEN succeeded his father Griffin in the principality of North 
Wtiles, A. D. 1120: this battle was near forty years after- 
wards. 

Owen's praise demands my song-, 
Owen swift and Owen strong, 
Fairest flower of Roderick's stem, 
Gwyneth's* shield and Britain's gem. 
He nor heaps his brooded stores, 
Nor on all profusely pours, 
Lord of every regal art, 
Liberal hand and open heart. 

Big with hosts of mighty name. 
Squadrons three against him came , 
This the force of Eirin hiding ; 
Side by side as proudly riding 
On her shadow long and gay 
Lochlint plows the watery way ; 

* North Wales, f Denmark. 



182 GRAY'S POEMS. 

There the Norman sails afar, 
Catch the winds and join the war ; 
Black and huge along they sweep, 
Burthens of the angry deep. 

Dauntless on his native sands 
The Dragon son* of Mona stands j 
In glittering arms and glory drest, 
Rifeh he rears his ruby crest : 
There the thundering strokes begin, 
There the press and there the din, 
Talymalfra's rocky shore 
Echoing to the battle's roar. 
Checked by the torrent-tide of blood, 
Backward Meinai rolls his flood, 
While, heaped his master's feet around. 
Prostrate warriors gnaw the ground. 
"Where his glowing eye-balls turn. 
Thousand banners round him burn : 
Where he points his purple spear 
Hasty, hasty rout is there ; 
Marking, with indignant eye, 
Fear to stop and shame to fly : 
There confusion, terror's child, 
Conflict fierce and ruin wild. 
Agony, that pants for breath. 
Despair and honourable death. 



* The red Dragon is the device of Cadwalladar, which all his 
descendants bore on their banners. 



eRAY'S POEMS. 183 

ODE X. 

• THE DEATH OF HOEL. 

From the Welsh of Aneuritn, styled The Monarch of the Bards. 

He flourished about the time of Taliessin, A. D. 570. 
This Ode is extracted from the Gododin. 

[See Mr. Evan's specimens, p. 71, 73.] 

Had 1 but the torrent's might, 

With headlong rage, and wild affright, 

Upon Dei'ra's squadrons hurled, ^ 

To rush and sweep them from the world ! 

Too, too secure in youthful pride, 

By them my friend, my Hoel, died, 

Great Cian's son ; of Madoc old, 

He asked no heaps of hoarded gold ; 

Alone in nature's wealth arrayed. 

He asked and had the lovely maid. 

To Cattraeth's vale, in glittering row, 
Twice two hundred warriors go ; 
Every warrior's manly neck 
Chains of regal honour deck, 
Wreathed in many a golden liak : 
From the golden cup they drink 
Nectar that the bees produce, 
Or the grape's ecstatic juice. 
Flushed with mirth and hope they burn, 
But none from Cattraeth's vale return, 



184 GRAB'S POEMS. 

Save A^ron brave and Conan strong, 
(Bursting through the bloody throng,) 
And I, the meanest of them all, 
That Jive to weep and sing their fall. 



ODE XI. 

(for music.) 

Performed in the Senate-house, Cambridge, July Ist, 
1769, at the installation of his Grace Augustus- 
Henry- Fitzroyt Duke of Grafton, Chancellor of 
the University. 

I. 

" Hence, avaunt ! ('tis holy ground,) 

Comus and his midnight crew, 
And ignorance with looks profound, 

And dreaming sloth of pallid hue, 
Mad sedition's cry profane. 
Servitude that hugs her chain, 
!Nor in these consecrated bowers,' 
Let painted flattery hide her serpent-train in flowers, 
Nor envy base, nor creeping gain. 
Dare the muse's walk to stain, 
While bright-eyed science watches round : 
Hence, away ! 'tis holy ground." 

II. 

From vonder realms of empyrian day 
Bursts on my ear th' indignant lay ; 



CRAY'S POEMS.! 185 

There sit the sainted sage, the bard divine, 

The few whom genius gave to shine 

Through every unborn age and undiscovered clime. 

Rapt th celestial transport they, 

yet hither oft a glance from high 

They send of tender sympathy 

To bless the place where on their opening soul 

First the genuine ardour stole. 

'Twas Milton struck the deep-toned shell, 

And, as the choral warblings round him swell, 

Meek Newton's self bends from his state sublime, 

And nods his hoary head, and listens to the rhyme. 

III. 

" Ye brown o'er-arching groves ! 

That contemplation loves, 
Where willowy Camus lingers with delight, 

Oft at the blush of dawn 

I trod your level lawn, 
Oft wooed the gleam of Cynthia silver-bright 
In cloisters dim, far from the haunts of folly, 
With freedom by my side and soft-eyed melancholy." 

IV. 
But hark ! the portals sound, and pacing forth. 

With solemn steps and slow, 
High potentates, and dames of royal birth, 

And mitred fathers, in long order go : 
Great Edward, with the lilies on his brow* 
From haughty Gallia torn, 

* Edward III. who added the Fleur de lys «f France to the 
^rms of England. He founded Trinity-College. 
Q 2 



ISO GRAY'S POEMS. 

And sad Chatillon/' on her bridal raorn,' 

That wept her bleeding love, and princely Clare,! 

And Anjoii's heroine,^ and the paler rose,§ 

The rival of her crown, and of her woes. 

And either Henry|| there, 

The murdered saint, and the majestic lord, 

That broke the bonds of Rome. 

(Their tears, their little triumphs o'er. 

Their human passions now no more. 

Save charity, that glows beyond the tomb) 

All that on Granta's fruitful plain 

Rich streams of regal bounty poured, 

And bade those awful fanes and turrets rise 

To hail their Fitzroy's festal morning come ; 

And thus they speak in soft accord 

The liquid language of the skies : 

* Mary de Valentia, Countess of Pembroke, daughter of Guy 
de Chatillon, Comte de St. Paul in France, of whom tradition 
says, that her liusband, Audemarde de Valentia, earl of Pem- 
broke, was slain at a tournament on the day of his nuptials. She 
was the foundress of Pembroke-coUeg-e or hail, under the name 
of Aula Maria; de Valentia. 

t Elizabeth de Burg, countess of Clare, was wife of John dc 
Bm'g-, son and heir of the earl of Ulster, and daughter of Gil- 
bert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, by Joan of Acres, daughter 
of Edward I. hence the poet gives her the epithet of princely. 
She founded Clare-hall. 

f Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI. foundress of Clueen's 
eoUege. The poet has celebrated her conjugal fidelity in a 
former ode. 

§ Elizabeth Widville, wife of Edward IV. (hence called the 
paler Rose, as being of the house of York.) She added to the 
foundation of Margaret of Anjou. 

II Heniy VI. and VIII- the former the founder of King's, the 
latter the greatest benefactor to Trinity-college. 



GR4Y'S POEMS. 187 



V. 
" What is gfrandeur, what is poAver ? 
Heavier toil, superior pain, • 
What the bright reward we gain ? 
The grateful memory of the geod. 
Sweet is the breath of vernal shower, 
The bee's collected treasures sweet, 
Sweet music's melting fall, but sweeter yet 
The still small voice of gratitude." 

VI. 
Foremost, and leaning from her golden cloud, 

The venerable Margaret* see ! 
" Welcome, my noble son !" she cries aloud, 

" To this thy kindred train and me : 
Pleased in thy lineaments we trace 
A Tudor'sf fire, a Beaufort's grace. 
Thy liberal heart, thy judging eye, 
The flower unheeded shall descry, 
And bid it round heaven's altars shed 
The fragrance of its blushing head ; 
Shall raise from earth the latent gem 
To glitter on the diadem. 



* Countess of Richmond and Derby, the mother of Henry 
VII. foundress of St. John's and Christ's coUeg-es. 

t The Countess was a Beaufort, and married to a Tudor ; 
hence the application of this line to the duke of Grafton, who 
claims descent from both these families. 



18S GRAY'S POEMS. 

VII. 
" Lo ! Granta waits to lead her blooming band ; 
Not obvious, not obtrusive, she 
No vulgar praise, no venal incense flings, 
Nor dares with courtly tongue refined 
Profane thy inborn royalty of mind : 
She reveres herself and thee. 
With modest pride to grace thy youthful brow 
The laureate wreath* that Cecil wore she brings, 
And to thy just, thy gentle hand 
Sijibmits the fasces of her sway ; 
While spirits blest above, and men below, 
Join with glad voice the loud symphonious lay. 

VIII. 

^' Through the wild waves, as they roar, 
With watchful eye, and dauntless mien, 
Thy steady course of honour keep. 
Nor fear the rock nor seek the shore : 
The star of Brunswick smiles serene, 
And gilds the horrors of the deep." 

* Lord treasurer Burleigh was chancellor of the University in 
the reign of queen Elizabeth. 



MISCELLANIES. 



A LONG STORF. 

Jldvertisement. 

Mr. Gray's Elegfy, previous to its publication, was handed about 
in MS. and had, amongst other admirers, the lady Cobhani 
who resided in the mansion-liouse at Stoke-Pogeis. The per- 
formance inducing her to wish for the author's acquaintance, 
lady Schaub and Miss Speed, then at her house u)idertook to 
introduce her to it. These two ladies wailed upon the author 
at his aunt's solitajy habitation, where he at that time resi- 
ded, and not finding him at home, shey left a card behind 
them. Mr. Gray, surprised at such a compliment, returned the 
visit ; and as the beginning of this intercourse bore some ap-. 
pearance of romance, he gave the liumorous and lively ac- 
count of it which the Long Stoiy contains. 

In Britain's isle, no matter where, 

An ancient pile of building stands ;* 
The Huntingdons and Hattons there 

Einploj^ed the power of fairy hands. 

*' The mansion-house at Stoke-Pogeis, then in possession of 
viscountess Cobham. The style of building which we now call 
queen Elizabeth's, is here admirably described, both with regard 
to its beauties and defects; and the third and fourth stanzas de- 
lineate the fantastic manners of her time with equal truth and 
humour. The house formerly belonged to the earls of Hunting- 
don and the family of Hatton. 



190 GRAY'S POEMS. 

To raise the ceilings fretted heig-ht, 

Each pannel in achievements cloth ing. 

Rich windows that exclude the light, 
And passages that lead to nothing. 

Full oft within the spacious walls, 

When he had fifty winters o'er him, 
My grave lord- keeper* led the brawls: 

The seal and maces danced before him. 

His bushy beard and shoe-strings green, 
His high-crowned hat and satin doublet, 

Moved the stout heart of England's queen. 

Though pope and Spaniard could not trouble it. 

What, in the very first beginning 

Shame of the versifying tribe ! 
Your history whither are you spinning .'' 

Can you do nothing but describe ? 

A house there is (and that's enough) 
From whence one fatal- morning issues 

A brace of warriors,! not in buff, 

But rustling in their silks and tissues. 

* Sir Christopher Hatton, promoted by Queen Elizabeth for 
his graceful person and fine dancing.*-Brav.'ls were a sort of a 
figure-dance then in vogxie, and probably deemed as elegant as 
our modern cotilions, or still more modern quadrilles. 

t The reader is already aijprized who these ladies were-, the 
two descriptions are prettily contrasted j and nothing can be 
more happily turned than the compliment to lady Cobham in 
the eighth stanza. 



GRAY'S POEMS. 191 

The first came cap-d-p^e from France, 

Her conquering destiny fulfilling, 
Who« meaner beauties eye askance, 

And vainly ape her art of killing. 

The other Amazon kind Heaven 

Had armed with spirit, wit, and satire ; 

But Cobham had the polish given. 

And tipped her arrows with good-nature. 

To celebrate her eyes, her air — 

Coarse panegyrics would but tease her ; 

Melissa is her nomde guerre ; 

Alas ! who would not wish to please her 1 

With bonnet blue and capuchine. 

And aprons long, they hid their armour, 

And veiled their weapons bright and keen 
In pity to the country farmer. 

Fame in the shape of Mr. P — t,* 

(By this time all the parish know it) 
Had told that thereabouts there lurked, 

A wicked imp they called a poet. 

* I have been told that this gentleman, a neighbour and ac- 
quaintance of Mr. Gray's in the country, was much displeased 
at the liberty here taken with his name, yet surely without any 
great reason. 



192 GRAY'S POEMS. 

Who prowled the country far and near, 
Bewitched the children of the peasants, 

Dryed up the cows and lamed the deer, 

And sucked the eggs and killed the pheasants* 

My lady heard their joint petition 

Swore by her coronet and ermine, 
She'd issue out her high commission 

To rid the manor of such vermin. 

The heroines undertook the task ; 

Trough lanes imknown,,oer stiles they ventured, 
Rapped at the door, nor stayed to ask, 

But bounce into the parlour entered. 

The trembling family they daunt, 

They fiirt, they sing, they laugh, they tattle. 

Rummage his mother, pinch his aunt. 
And up stairs in a whirlwind rattle. 

Each hole and cupboard they explore. 
Each creek and cranny of his chamber, 

Run hurry scurry round the floor, 
And o'er the bed and tester clamber ; 

Into the drawers and china pry, 

Papers and books, a huge imbroglio I 

Under a tea-cup he might lie. 

Or creased like dog's ears in a folio. 



GRAY'S POEMS. 193 

On the first marching of the troops, 

The muses, hopeless of his pardon, 
Conveyed him underneath their hoops 

To a small closet in the garden. 

So rumour says ; (who will believe ?) 

But that they left the door a-jar, 
Where safe, and laughing in his sleeve, 

He heard the distant din of war. 

5?liort was his joy ; he little knew 

The power of magic was no fable ,; 
Out of the window wisk they flew, 

But left a spell upon the table. 

The words too ca^er to unriddle, 

The poet felt a strange disorder; 
" Transparent birdlime formed the middle, 
And chains invisible the border. 

o cunning was the apparatus, 
The powerful pothooks did so move him, 
That will he nill to the great house 
He went as if the devil drove him. 

Yet on his way (no sign of grace. 

For folks in fear are apt to pray) 
To Phoebus he preferred his case, 

And begged his aid that dreadful day. 

The godhead would have backed his quarrel: 

But with a biushj on recollection, 
Owned that his quiver and his laurel 

'Gainst four such eyes were no protection. 
R 



194 GRAY'S POEMS. 

The court was sat, the culprit there ; 

Forth from their g-loomy mansions creepingj 
The lady Janes and Joans repair, 

And from the gallery stand peeping ; 

Such as in silence of the night 

Come (sweep) along some winding entry, 
(Styack* has often seen the sight) 

Qr at the chapel-door stand sentry ; 

In peaked hoods and^nantles tarnished, 

Sour visages enougti to scare ye, 
High dames of honour once that garnished 

The drawing-room of fierce queen Mary ! 

The peeress comes : the audience stare, 
And doff their hats with due submission : 

She courtesies, as she takes her chair, 
To all the people of condition. 

The bard with many an artful fib 

Had in imagination fenced him, 
Disproved the arguments of Squib, t 

And all that Groomt could urge against him. 

But soon his rhetoric forsook him 
When he the solemn hall had seen ; 

A sudden fit of ague shook him ; 

He stood as mute as poor Macleane.f 

*■ The housekeeper. 

t The steward. 

X Groom of the cfeamber. 

§ A famous highwayman, hanged the week before. 



GRAY'S POEMS. 1&5 

Yet something he was heard to mutter, 
j5 « How in the park, beneath an old tree» 
(Without design to hurt the butter, 
Or ^y malice to the poultry,) 

" He once or twice had penned a/ sonnet, 
Yet hoped that he might save his bacon } 

Numbers would give their oaths upon it, 
He neer was for a conjurer taken." 

The ghostly prudes, with hagged* face, 

Already had condemned the sinner : 
My lady rose, and with a grace 

She smiled, and bid him come to dinner.) 

Jesu-Maria ! Madam Bridget, 
Why, what can the viscountess mean !" 
Cried the square hoods, in woful fidget ; 
'^ The times are altered quite and clean ! 

'♦ Decorum's turned to mere civility ! 

Her air and all her manners show it : 
Commend me to her affability ! 

Sj>eak to a commoner and poet !" 

[litre 500 stanzas are lost.] 

* Hag-ged, i. e. the face of a witch or hag. The epithet Aa- 
gard has been sometimes mistaken as conveying the same idea, 
but it means a veiy different thing, viz. wild and farouche, and 
is taken from an unreclaimed hawk called a hagard. 

tHere the story finishes; the exclamation of the ghosts, 
which follows, is chaiacteristic of the Spanish ma mers of the 
age when they are supj.'osed to have lived ; and the 500 stanzas 
said to be lost, may be imagined to contain the remaiiider of 
their long-winded expostulation. 



196 GRAY'S POEMS. 

And so God save our noble king, 

And guard us from long-winded lubbers, 
That to eternity would sing. 

And keep nay lady from her rubbers. 



ELEGY 

WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. 

The curfew tolls* the knell of parting day, 
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea. 

The plowman homeward plods his weary way, 
And L aves the world to darkness and to me. 

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 
And all the air a solemn stillness holds, 

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flighty 
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds ; 

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower 
The moping owl does to the moon complain 

Of such as, wandering near her secret bowe;r, 
Molest her ancient solitary reign. 

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, 
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap. 

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, 
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 

* squila di lontano 

Che p9,ia'l giomo pianger, clie si miiOre. 

Dante, Purgat. 1. 8- 



GRAY'S POEMS, 197 

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, 

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shedj 

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn. 
Or busy housewife ply her evening care ; 

No children run to lisp their sire's return, 
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. 

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, 

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke ', 

How jocund did they drive their team afield ! 

How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! 

Let not ambition mock their useful toil, 
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure : 

Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile 
The short and simple annals of the poor. 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
And all that beauty, all that wealth, e'er gave, 

Await alike the inevitable hour: 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 

Nor you, ye proud ! impute to these the fault, 
Ifmfuaory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, 

Wh^re thro' the long drawn aisle and fretted vault, 
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 
R 2 



198 GRAY'S POEMS. 

Can storied urn or animated bust 

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath r 
Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust, 

Or flattery sooth the dull cold ear of death ? 

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 

Some heart once pregnant Vvith celestial fire. 

Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed^ 
Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre. 

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 
Rich with the spoils of tithe did ne'er unroll ; 

Chill penury repressed their noble rage, 
And froze the genial current of the soul. 

Full many a gem of purest ray serene 

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear ; 

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast 
The little tyrant of his fields withstood, 

Some mute inglorious Milton, here may rest, 
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. 

The applause of listening senates to command, 
The threats of pain and ruin to despise, 

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, 
And read their history in a nation's eyes, 



GRAY'S POEMS. 199 

l*heir lot forbade ; nor circumscrib'd alone 

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined ', 

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, 
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind ; 

Tlie struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, 
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 

Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride 
With incense kindled at the muse's flame> 

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,* 
Their sober wishes never learned to stray ; 

Along the cool sequestered vale of life 

They kept the noiseless teoour of their way.. 

Yet e'en these bones, from insult to protect 
Some frail memorial still erected nigh, 

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked 
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 

Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered muse. 

The place of fame and elegy supply, 
And many a holy text around she strews. 

That teach the rustic moralist to die. 

* This part of the Elegy differs from the first copy. The fal- 
lowing stanza v/as excluded with the other alterations : 

Hark ! how the sacred caSui, that breathes around, 
Bids every tierce tumultuous passion cease. 

In still small accents whispering from the ground, 
A grateful earnest of eternal peace. 



20& GRAY'S POEMS. 

For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey 

This pleasing anxious being- e'er resigned, 

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, 
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind ? 

On some fond breast the parting soul relies, 
Some pious drops the closing eye requires ; 

E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries, 
E'en in our ashes* live their wonted fires. 

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonoured dead. 
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate, 

If chance, by lonely contemplation led, 
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate. 

Haply some hoary -headed swain may say, 
" Oft have we seen him, at the peep of dawn, 

Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, 
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. 

*' There, at the foot of yonder nodding beach. 
That wreaths its old fantastic root so high, 

His listless length at noon-tide would he stretch, 
And pore upon the brook that bubbles by. 

" Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn. 
Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove ; 

Now drooping, woful wan ! like one forlorn. 
Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. 

* Ch'i veg^io nel pensier, dolce mio fuoco, 
Fredda ana lingua, et due begli occhi chiufi 
Rimaner droppo noi pien difaville. Petrarch, Son. i69. 



GRAY S POEMS. 201 

*• One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill, 
Along the heatli,* and near his fav'rite tree ; 

Another came ; nor yet beside the rill, 

^^ up the lawn, nor at the wood, was he : 

" The next, with dirges due, in sad array, [borne : 
Slow through the churchvvay-path we saw him 

Approach, and read (for thou canst read) the lay 
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."t 

EPITAPH, 

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, 
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown : 

Fair science frowned not on his humble birth. 
And melancholy marked him for her own. 

*Mr. Gray forgot, when he displaced, by the preceding stan- 
za, his beautiful description of the evening- haunt, the reference 
tb it which he had here left : 

Him have we seen the greenwood side along, 
While o'er the heath we hied, our labour done, 

Oft as the woodlark piped her farewell song,! 
With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun. 

t In the early editions the following lines were added, but the 
{jarenthes^s was thought too long: 

There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, 
By hands unseen, are showers of violets found ; 

The redbreast loves to build and warble there, 
And little footsteps lightly print the ground. 



202 SRAY'S POEMS. 

Larg'e was his bount}?, and his soul sincere ; 

Heaven did a recompense as largely send : 
He g-ave to misery all he had, a tear ; [friend. 

He gained from Heaven (it was all he wished) < 

No further seek his merits to disclose, 

Oi draw his frailties iirom their dread abode, 

(There they alike in trembling hope repose**) 
The bosom oi his Father and his God. 



EPITAPH 



ON MRS. MARY CLARKE. 



Lo where this silent marble weeps, 
A friend, a wife, a mother, sleeps ; 
A heart, within whose sacred cell, 
The peaceful virtues loved to dwell : 
Aflfection warm, and iaith sincei-e, 
And soft humanity were there. 
In agony, in death, resigned. 
She felt the wound she left behind. 
Her infant image here below 
Sits smiling on a father's wo, 

* Pavcntosa speme. Petrarch, Son, 

t This lady, the wife of Dr. Clarke, pliysiciaii at Epsom, died 
April 27th, 1737, and is buried in the church of Beckenham , 
Kent 



GRAY'S POEMS. 203 



Whom what awaits while yet he strays 

Along the lonely vale of days ? 

A pang-, to secret sorrow dear, 

A sigh, an unavailing tear, 

Till time shall every grief remove 

With life, with memory, and with love, 



TRANSLATION FROM STATIUS. 

Third in the labours of the disc came on, 

With sturdy step and slow, Hippomedon ; 

Artful and strong he poised the well-known weiglit 

By Phlegyas warned, and fired by Mnestheus' fate, 

That to avoid, and this to emulate. 

His vigorous arm he tried before he flyng, 

Braced all his nerves and every sinew strung, 

Then with a tempest's whirl and wary eye 

Pursued his cast, and hurled the orb on high ; 

The orb on high, tenacious of its course, 

True to the mighty arm that gave it force, 

Far overleaps all bound, and joys to see 

Its ancient lord secure of victory : 

The theatre's green height and woody wall 

Tremble ere it precipitates its fall ; 

The ponderous mass sinks in the cleaving ground, 

While vales and woods and echoing hills rebound. 

As when from Etna's smoking summit broke, 

The eyeless Cyclops heaved the craggy rock, 



204 GRAY'S POEMS. 

Where ocean frets beneath the dashing oar, 
And parting surges round the vessel roar ^ 
'Twas there he aimed the meditated harm. 
And scarce Ulysses 'scaped his giant arm, 
A tiger's pride the victor bore away, 
With native spots and artful labour gay, 
A shining border round the margin rolled;. 
And calmed the terrors of his claws in gold. 
Cambridge, May 8th, 1736'. 



GRAY OF HIMSELF. 

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune, 
He had not the method of making a fortune ; [odd ', 
Could love and could hate, so was thought something 
No very great wit, he believed in a God : 
A post or a pension he did not desire, [Squire. 

But left church and state to Charles Townshend and 



INDEX. 



Page 
Life of the Author • . . • • 3 

LETTERS. 

No. 
I. Fpm Mr. West. — Complains of his friend's 

silence . . . • . -25 

11. To Mr. West. — Answer to the former. — 
A translation of some lines from Stg^ 
tins . . . . . . .26 

III. From Mr. West.— Approbation of the ver- 

sion.— Ridicule on the Cambridge Col- 
lection of Verses on the Marriage of the 
Prince of Wales . . . . 28 

IV. To Mr. West.™ On the little encourage- 

ment which be finds given to clas.sical 
learning at Cambridge.— His aversion 
to metaphysical grid mathematical stu- 
dies • 30 

V. From Mr. West. — Answer to the former, 

advises his (?orrespondent not to give up 

poetry ^\'heu he applies himself to the 

law . - • . . .- 3% 

Vl. To Mr Waipole. — Excuse for not writing 

to him. &:c o'i 



206 INDEX. 

No. Page. 

Vll. From Mr. West. — A poetical epistle ad- 
dressed to his Cambridge friend, taken 
in part from Tibullus, and a prose letter 
of Mr. Pope • . ". . .35 

VIII. To Mr. West.— Thanks him for his po- 
etical epistle. — Complains of low spirits. 
— Lady Walpole's death, and his con- 
cern for Mr. H. Walpole . . 39 

IX. To Mr. Walpol^ — How he spends his own 
time in the country. — Meets with Mr. 
Southern, the dramatic poet . . 41 

■ X. To Mr. Walpole.— Supposed manner in 
which Mr. Walpole spends his time in 
the country . . . . -43 

XI. To Mr. Walpole. — Conj^ratulates him on 
his new place. — Whimsical description 

> of the quadrangle of Peter-House . 44 

Xll. To Mr. West. — On his own leaving the 

University • • • . '45 

XIII. To his Mother. — His voyage from Dover. 

— Description of Calais. — Abbeville. — 
Amiens." Face of the country, and dress 
of the people . .... 46 

XIV. To Mr. West .—Monuments of the kings 

of France at St. Denis, &c. — French 
opei'a and music. — Actors &c . 49 

XV. To Mr. West.— Palace of Versailles.— Its 
gardens and vvali3r-works. — Installation 
of the Knights du St. Esprit . . 53 

XVI. To his Mother.— Rheims— Its Cathedral. 
—Disposition and amusements of its in- 
habitants . . . . . 5G 

SVII. To his Father.— Face of the country be- 
tweenRheims and Dijon. — Descriplion 



INDEX. 



JVo. 

xvm. 

XIX. 

XX. 

XXI. 
XXII. 
XXIII. 



XXIV. 
XXV, 



sm 

Page 
of the latter. — Monastery of the Carthu- 
sians and Cistercians . . .59 

To Mr. West. — Lyons. — Beauty of its 
environs. — Roman antiquities . 61 

From Mr. West. — His wishes to accom- 
pany his friend. — His retired life in 
London. — Address to his Lyre, in La- 
tin Sapphics on the prospect of Mr. 
Gray's return . . . . .68 

T(« his Mother. — Lyons. — Excursion to 
the Grande Chartreuse. — Solemn and 
romantic approach to it. — His reception 
there, and commendation of the mo- 
astery 66 

To his Father. — Geneva — Advantage 
of a free government exhibited in the 
very look of the people — Beauty of the 
lake, and plenty of its fish . , 6S 

To his mother. — Journey over the Alps to 

Turin. — Singular accident in passing 

them . — Method of travelling over Mount 

Cenis 7Q 

To Mr. West.—Turin.— Its Carnival — 

More of the views and scenery on the 
road to the Grande Chartreuse. — 
Wild and savage prospects amongst 
the Alps agreeable to Livy's descrip- 
tion .7^ 

To Mr. West.— Genoa.— Music— The 
Doge. — Churches and the Palazzo 
Doria 76 

To his Mother. — Paintings at Modena. — 
Bologna. — Beauty and richness of Lom- 
. bardy • • • . . .79 



208 



INDEX. 



J^o. Page 

XXVL To bis Mother.— The Apennines.--Flo- 

rence and its gallery . . .81 
XXVII. To Mr. West. — Journey from Genoa to 
Florence. — Elegiac verses occasioned 
by the sight of the plains where the 
battle of Trebia was fought . . 84 
XXVIIl. To his Mother.— Death of the pope.— 
Intended departure for Rome— First 
and pleasing appearance of an Italian 
spi'ing . .... 85 

XXIX. To his Mother.— Cathedral of Sienna.— 
Viterbo — Distant sight of Rome. — 
The Tiber — Entrarce into the city. — 
St. Peter's. — Sntrodaction of theCardi- 
na! d'Auvergne into the conclave • 86 
XXX. To his Mother — Illumination of St. Pe- 
ter's on Good. Friday, &.C. . . 90 

XXXI. To Mr. West —Comic account of the Pa- 

lace of the duke of Modena at Tivoli.*— 
The Anio. — Its cascade — ^^Situation of 
the town. — Villas of Horace and Mae- 
cenas, and other remains of antiquity. 
— Modern aqueducts — A grand Ro- 
man ball . • • . . 91 

XXXII. To Mr. West.— Ludicrous allusion to an- 

cient customs. — 4ibanoand its lake — 
Castel Gondolfo. — Pro.spect from the 
palace J an observation of Mr Wal- 
pole's on the views in that part of 
Italy. — Latin inscriptions, ancient and 

modern 96 

XXXIIL To his Mother —Road to Naples.— Beau- 
tiful situation of that city. — Its bay. — 
Of Raise, and several other antiquities. 



INDEX. 



209 



i ^ — Some account of the first discovery 

of an ancient town not known to be 
Herculaneum . • • . 100 

XXXiV. To his Father .—-Departure from Rome 
and retui-n to Florence. — No likeli- 
hood of tlie conclave s rising. — Some 
of the cardinals dead, — Description of 
the Pretender, his sons, and court, — 
Procession at Naples. — Sight of the 
king and queen. — Mildness of the air 
at Florence . . • . • 102 
XXXV. From Mr. West.— On his quitting the 

Temple, and reason for it • ■ 105 

XXXVI. To Mr. West— Answer to the fore- 

going letter. — Some account of Na- 
ples and its environs, and of Mr. Wal- 
pole's and his return to Florence . 107 

XXXVII. To his mother. — Excursion to Bologna. 

— Election of a pope ; description of • 
his person, with an odd speech which 
he made to the cardinals in the con- 
clave . . . . . .111 

XXXVIII. To his father,— Uncertainty of the route 
he shall take in his return to England. 
— Magnificence of the Italians in their 
reception of strangers, and parsimony 
when alone. — The great applause 
which the new pope meets with. — One 
of bis bo7i mots • . • .113 

XXXIX. To his father. — Total want of amuse- 
ment at Florence, occasioned by the 
late emperor's funeral not being pub- 
lic. — A procession to avert the ill €f- 



SIO 



INDEX. 



No. 

fects of a late inundation. — Iiitentic 
of going to Venice. — An invasion 
from the Neapolitans apprehended. — 
The inhabitants of Tuscany dissatisfi- 
ed with the government • 
XL. To Mr West. — The time of his depar- 
ture from Florence determined. — Al- 
teration in his temper and spirits. — 
Difference between an Italian fair and 
an English one. — A Farewell to Flo- 
rence and its prospects in Latin hex- 
ameters. — Imitation, in the same lan- 
guage, of an Italian sonnet 
XLL From vir. West. — His spirits not as yet 
improved by country air. — Has begun 
to read Tacitus, but not to relish him 

XLII. To Mr. West —Earnest hopes for his 
friend's better health, as the warm 

• weather comes on. — Defence ol Ta- 

citus, and his character. — Of the uew 
Dunciad. — Sends him a speech from 
the first scene of his Agrippina 

XLin. From Mr. West —Criticisms on his 
friend's tragic style. — Latin hexame- 
ters on his own cough 
*XLIII. To Dr. Wharton, on taking his degree 
of Bachelor of Civil Law 

XLV. To Dr. Wharton.— Ridicule on univer- 
sity laziness — Of Dr. Akenside's 
poem on the Pleasures of Imagina- 
tion 



116 



117 



121 



122 



124 



126 



128 



* This should have been XLIV. 



INDEX. 



211 



JVo. Pag^ 

■*XLV. To Mr. Walpole. — Ludicrous descrip- 
tion of the Scottish army's approach 
• to the capital. — Animadversions on 

Pope . • . . . 130^ 

XL VI. To Dr. Wharton. — His amusements in 
town. — Reflections on riches. — Cha- 
racter of Aristotle , • • 132 
XL VII. To Mr. Walpole — Observations on his 
tragedy of Agrippina. — Admirable 
picture of true philosophy , • 131 
XLVIII. To Mr. Walpole — Ludicrous compli- 
ment of condolence on the death of 
his favourite cat, enclosing an ode on 
that subject ..... 137 

XLIX. To Dr. Wharton — Loss by fire of a house 
in Cornhill. — On Diodorus Siculus. — 
M. Gresset's Poems. — Thomson's 
Castle of Indolence. — Ode to a Wa- 
ter Nymph, with a character of its 
author ...... 139 

L. To Dr Wharton. — Ludicrous account 
of the duke of Newcastle's installa- 
tion at Cambridge. — On the ode then 
performed, ani more concerning the 
author of it • • • . • 140 
LI. To his mother. — Consolatory on the 

death of her sister . 142 

LII. To Mr. Walpole. — Encloses his Elegy 

in a Country Churchyard • . 143 



* This should have been XLVI. and the succeeding' Letters 
«ach one number higher. 



212 


POETRV. 
POETRY. 


Page, 


Ode I. 


On the Spring, . . . • 


145 


11. 


On the death of a favourite Cat, 


. 147 


III. 


On a distant prospect of Eton College, 149 


IV. 


To Adversity, 


153 


V. 


The progress of Poesy, 


155 


VI. 


The Bard, .... 


162 


VII. 


The Fatal Sisters, 


173 


Vlll. 


The descent of Odin, 


177 


IX. 


The triumph of Owen, 


181 


X. 


The death of Hoel, • 


183 


XI. 


For Music, on the installation of the Duke 




of Grafton, Chancellor of the University, 518 


A Long Story, 


189 


Elegy written in a Country Churchyard, 


196 


Epitaph on Mrs. Clarke, . . • ■ 


202 


Translation from Statius, . 


20.3 


Crray of himself. .... 


204 



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